This New Deal schoolhouse was built circa 1935 and served as the Garfield School until consolidation in the 1950s. It was later used as storage for the Acme Pecan Company. There is a larger building adjacent to this property, built circa 1945, to accommodate more students. I believe it’s still standing. This was photographed several years ago and there’s now a residence in front of it.
I was out with a friend photographing churches all over Emanuel County yesterday and was stopped in my tracks when we came upon this gem, in Summertown. I knew right away it was a schoolhouse but of course, wanted to know more. It’s on private property and is electronically monitored for trespassing, so first and foremost, it can only be observed from the road.
I’ve only been able to discern that it was known as the Summertown School. The Georgia Historic Resources survey states that it was built circa 1930 and was used until the 1960s-1970s, but that doesn’t seem likely since a more modern brick school, a street away, was built [likely by the WPA], circa 1940. My guess is that this school dates to circa 1920 and probably housed grades 1-11 in its four classrooms. When the newer school was built, it’s possible that this building housed elementary grades, or, more likely, was used as the Black school. [Update: Cynthia Jennings discovered that the school was built in 1907].
A restoration of the building was attempted in the 1970s but never completed and I believe it has been vacant since. It would be nice to see it restored as I’m sure there are still some people around who remember going to school here.
The campus of the old Hubbard Elementary and High School, with modern structures built during the era of Equalization Schools, is now a public facility and park known as the W. M. Hubbard Complex. After desegregation, the school became Hubbard Middle School, but like most mid-century school buildings, mold, asbestos, and related issues likely led to its eventual abandonment.
Some buildings have been razed and those remaining, including the gymnasium, have been restored and are now used by groups such as the Boys and Girls Clubs.
This house was built for teachers at the State Teachers and Agricultural College for Negroes between 1929-1930. It’s one of two contributing properties of the school that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is an important resource. It still serves an educational purpose, as the Monroe County Workforce Development Center.
National Register of Historic Places
This building sits about a block behind the old Patterson High School. It could have been anything from a vocational annex to an elementary school building. The whole area at the corner of Williams Street and Hyers Street is one large educational campus. I will update as soon as I know more and would be grateful for any information.
The old Patterson High School has been nicely restored and is great example of a community saving an important element of its past. It’s now known as Eagle Station and is home to city offices and public use spaces, as well. For a small town, this is a big win. My best guess is that it was built in the 1920s or 1930s. The Spanish Mission Revival influence in the architecture was commonly used in school architecture during that time.
This is the old Patterson High School gymnasium. It’s in better shape than most of the surviving wooden gymnasiums built before World War II. Basketball was usually the biggest sport in rural communities in the first half of the 20th century and this was the home of the Patterson High Eagles. I believe it was built in the 1930s [early 1940s at the latest].
The old Danburg School is standing, but not accessible as it is on private property. The gymnasium is visible from the road. The school was built in 1926 and this structure is typical of gymnasiums built between circa 1920s-1940s. Football wasn’t nearly as dominant in the first half of the 20th century as it is today and basketball reigned supreme in smaller communities. This would have been a busy place in its day, though by 1944 the school was consolidated with Tignall.
Thanks again go to the nice folks at the Vintage Wilkes County group on Facebook for identifying this place. It was built in 1925 to replace the old Rehoboth Baptist Church, which was used as a school after the construction of the preset Rehoboth Church in 1903. It is presently a social hall for the church.
This schoolhouse looks to have been built in the 1950s or 1960s and has been abandoned for a long time. GHSBP confirms, and elaborates: …The school opened in 1954 as West Berrien Elementary, a consolidation of Jordan and New River elementary schools, and part of Berrien’s vast building program under the Minimum Foundation Program. West Berrien was renamed in 1988 to Northwest Elementary after taking in Enigma’s students. No gym was ever built on campus, so basketball teams continued to play home games in Enigma.
Northwest closed its doors in 1994, the year after a new middle school built to be a consolidated middle school opened in Nashville. One wing of Northwest was uprooted and moved to Nashville to be additional room at Berrien Primary School.
(Minimum Foundation helped fund schools throughout the state in the 1950s. Despite being built by different contracting firms, they all have a pretty similar look.)