The Enigma High School Gymnasium in Enigma, Georgia, was constructed in 1952 (according to an AI-generated response), along with a new cafeteria and kindergarten. Although the primary school building at the site—a large brick structure built in 1926—burned down in 1973, the gymnasium and cafeteria were spared. I believe a brick building in front of the gym may have been the cafeteria but haven’t been able to confirm.
Columbus has a large number of historic schools still standing, many of which serve various purposes. The Secondary Industrial School, in the Waverly Terrace neighborhood, was one of the first co-ed institutions in the nation to combine academics and vocational training. When it opened in 1906, it offered millinery, dressmaking, and business training for girls, and carpentry, pattern-making, machinist and business training, as well as cotton mill work. The school’s name changed to Columbus Industrial High School in 1912, and became Columbus Junior High School in 1939.
The monumental structure was one of the final works of J. W. Golucke, an architect primarily known for his courthouse designs.
National Register of Historic Places
Reidsville High School was built circa 1926 to replace an earlier facility (pictured below), which was lost to fire in 1925.
The earlier school was a 6-teacher school and was considered the best such facility in Tattnall County. The educational survey noted that it was valued at $16,000, was surrounded by five acres and school gardens, and featured indoor “sanitary toilets”. In addition to classrooms, there was an auditorium, a domestic science room, and a music room. Though the Reidsville school was lost to fire, the Glennville High School, of the same era, still survives.
Reidsville High School was quite typical of schools built from the late 1910s until World War II. The original brick siding was covered with stucco during a restoration. [Stuccoing was seen as an affordable way to “modernize” buildings at one time, but is actually an unfortunate choice. The stucco is non-historic and greatly detracts from the intended architectural presence.] The facility remains in use, though not as a high school.
Identifying this school in my hometown has been a bit of a challenge. When I worked at the Fitzgerald-Ben Hill County Library in high school in the 1980s, I assisted on the Bookmobile and we regularly stopped beside this building and it was referred to as the Callie Garbutt School, likely due to its proximity to the church of the same name. It was not in use as a school at that time and may have been a neighborhood resource center.
It’s the fourth and final school to have been built in Fitzgerald’s cotton mill village. Two small schools originally served the area and were replaced circa 1910-1915 by a stone veneer building known simply as the Cotton Mill School. This structure, in the Mid-Century Modern or International Style, opened in 1957.
Our friend at the Georgia High School Basketball Project who knows these schools better than anyone I know did some digging and shared the following history:
This was built as Hunter Elementary. It was not an equalization school.
Closing seems to have been in 1965, or within a year or two of that. It was a Ben Hill County School. Fitzgerald still had its own city system then.
The name was previously Cotton Mill, but almost assuredly changed in 1957 when the Macon News confirmed the new building opened.
Looking at the state school directories, the building was possibly named for the Ben Hill County school superintendent, J.C. Hunter. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard of one of the new school buildings named for a superintendent.
I’m shocked it was actually built.
Hunter was four classrooms. The state was normally not into building schools that small. Hunter was close enough to have gone to another county school or for the county to have made arrangements with a city school.
It was grades 1-8 in 1964-65. I can’t find any articles in available online papers on its closure, but the state would have been pressuring Ben Hill to close it at the very least because there were four teachers for eight grades.
The old Hunter building housed a Headstart program in 1980. It had been remodeled in 1972 to educate mentally challenged students.
So far, I’ve been unable to locate any information on this school, but the International Style architecture suggests it likely dates to the 1950s. It may have been used until the 1970s-1990s.
This bell near the front entrance to the school is probably a relic of an earlier school, perhaps the Lumber City High School. It’s not identified as such, though one would presume it to be related.
The marker beneath the bell was placed in 1921, perhaps at a slightly different location originally, by the Oconee Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. It reads: This street was the old River Road blazed by Gen. David Blackshear, 1812. Six miles beyond in the forks of Oconee and Ocmulgee River was the second fort built in Telfair County by Gen. David Blackshear for defense in War [of] 1812.
The school has two wings radiating from the front entrance, which housed classrooms, I presume.
As seen here, Hurricane Helene left her calling card on the campus, A separate building, to the left, may have also housed classrooms.
The International Style is characterized by minimalism and is focused on functional and utilitarian design. The lack of design may be its most notable feature, and its simple form was very popular with Georgia schools from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. The most interesting element to the Lumber City Elementary school is the covered breezeway at the front entrance.
As with most of these mid-century Georgia schools, there is very little interest or hope for their preservation. While these structures appear to be in salvageable condition, it’s unlikely they will ever be reused. I believe the Lumber City Elementary school was used for adult education courses as late as the early 2010s, but has been abandoned since then.
Tax records date the Alston School to 1900, but the architecture indicates it was built in the the 1920s or thereabouts. It was an elementary school. When it closed in 1961, it was the last rural school in Montgomery County. It was briefly used as a music hall in the early 2000s, but that endeavor was short-lived.
Empty school buildings can be found in communities all over Georgia, and though they were once sources of pride, are now considered liabilities by small governments unable to maintain and properly restore them for other uses. There are success stories, but more often than not, they suffer the fate of the Alston School.
According to Aubrey Sims, via Facebook, there have been four school buildings at Air Line. He states that two burned to the ground and this is the only one still standing. Air Line Academy was the first, and built circa 1889 near this location. In 1925, a new school was built, which consolidated Union Hill (Bethany) and Cross Roads and was renamed Air Line Consolidated School. It was destroyed by fire in November 1938. A new school, thanks to the New Deal Works Progress Administration (WPA) agency, was completed and opened in 1940. It originally housed all grades but after another round of consolidation, was reduced to grades 1-8. An arson fire claimed the school in 1968, and the present structure was built in 1969. It remained in use until at least the 1990s. I believe the gymnasium also dates to 1969.
A sign above the door identifies this structure as the Mershon School. More specifically, it served as an elementary school before consolidation did away with the need for the rural schools that served crossroads communities for much of the state’s history. The architecture is very utilitarian, with the Spanish Mission-inspired [I presume] entryway being the only thing faintly decorative about the building. Most likely, it only served the community for 10-15 years. I’d love to hear from anyone who attended and who knows more about the history.
It’s used as the Mershon Social Club today and the last time I drove by there was a sign for the Volunteer Fire Department on the side of the building. They likely use it for meetings. At least its still serving the community.
Even though hard economic times were already foreshadowing the Great Depression in Southwest Georgia, Brinson was still a thriving farm community in the early 1920s, when this typical Colonial Revival schoolhouse was built. It has been identified as the Brinson Consolidated School, and was probably an elementary school. Consolidation was not a concept static to just one decade, and counties often saw the value and thrift of consolidating small rural schools into a central location.
According to a 1998 Georgia Historic Preservation Division resource survey, the school was once a much larger H-form structure and apparently this wing was all that survived a fire [date undocumented]. The form also noted that Gordon Bower was the superintendent of Decatur County schools at the time. In 1969, the Brinson school was sold to a group of parents for the establishment of a private school and was home for many years to Oaks Academy.
As the date plate indicates, this gymnasium was built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression. Numerous structures of this type were constructed by the New Deal agency to not only provide jobs but to improve the cultural and recreational opportunities for communities all over the nation. In small towns like Buena Vista, such facilities often served a broader purpose, hosting musical acts, dances, dramatic endeavors, and charity events. Basketball was the central focus, however, and it was more popular than football in most communities until at least the 1960s.
The building is in a state of serious disrepair and has likely been unused for many years.