Free Hill, Tennessee | |
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Coordinates: 36°33′44″N85°29′32″W / 36.56222°N 85.49222°W Coordinates: 36°33′44″N85°29′32″W / 36.56222°N 85.49222°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Tennessee |
County | Clay |
Elevation | 620 ft (189 m) |
Time zone | UTC-6 (Central Time Zone) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (Central Time Zone) |
Area code | 931 |
GNIS feature ID | 1284872 [1] |
Free Hills Rosenwald School | |
Location | Free Hills Rd., E of TN 52, Free Hill, Tennessee |
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Coordinates | 36°33′45.5″N85°29′12.7″W / 36.562639°N 85.486861°W |
Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
Built | 1929 |
Built by | Samuel L. Smith |
Architectural style | Rosenwald School Plan |
NRHP reference No. | 96001360 [2] |
Added to NRHP | November 15, 1996 |
Free Hill (also called Free Hills) is an unincorporated community in Clay County, Tennessee, United States. [1] It is an African American community established in 1816, before the Civil War.
The original inhabitants were the freed slaves of Virginia Hill, the daughter of a wealthy North Carolina planter. [3] After purchasing 2,000 acres (8 km2) of isolated hilly land, Hill freed her slaves and turned the property over to them. Folklore suggests that the original residents included Virginia Hill's own mulatto children. [4]
At its peak, the community had about 300 residents and included two grocery stores, three clubs, two eating establishments, two churches, and a school. [4] Today, Free Hill's population is approximately 70. [3]
The settlement's Rosenwald school was one of 354 schools for African Americans built in the early 20th century with financial support from the Julius Rosenwald Fund. The Free Hills Rosenwald School was used from approximately 1925 to 1949. The structure, which is believed to be one of only about 30 Rosenwald schools still standing, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. [2]
A small number of residents remain in Free Hill, whose population has declined since the 1960s. In September 1993 the state of Tennessee placed a historical marker on Tennessee State Route 53 to identify the community and commemorate its history. [4]
College Park is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and is approximately four miles (6.4 km) from the northeast border of Washington, D.C. The population was 34,740 at the 2020 United States Census. It is best known as the home of the University of Maryland, College Park. Since 1994, the city has also been home to the National Archives at College Park, a facility of the U.S. National Archives, as well as to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN).
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The Rosenwald School project built more than 5,000 schools, shops, and teacher homes in the United States primarily for the education of African-American children in the South during the early 20th century. The project was the product of the partnership of Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish-American clothier who became part-owner and president of Sears, Roebuck and Company and the African-American leader, educator, and philanthropist Booker T. Washington, who was president of the Tuskegee Institute.
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Lyles or Lyles Station is an unincorporated community in Patoka Township, Gibson County, Indiana. The community dates from 1849, although its early settlers first arrived in the 1830s, and it was formally named Lyles Station in 1886 to honor Joshua Lyles, a free African American who migrated with his family from Tennessee to Indiana around 1837. Lyles Station is one of Indiana's early black rural settlements and the only one remaining. The rural settlement reached its peak in the years between 1880 and 1912, when major structures in the community included the railroad depot, a post office, a lumber mill, two general stores, two churches, and a school. By the turn of the twentieth century, Lyles Station had fifty-five homes, with a population of more than 800 people. The farming community never fully recovered from the Great Flood of 1913, which destroyed much of the town. Most of its residents left for economic reasons, seeking opportunities for higher paying jobs and additional education in larger cities. By 1997 approximately fifteen families remained at Lyles Station, nearly all of them descended from the original settlers.
Lyles Consolidated School is a historic school in Lyles Station, Indiana. The third school to be located in Lyles Station, it was opened in 1919 and used until 1958. Abandoned for nearly forty years, it had deteriorated almost to the point of total collapse by 1997. The Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation was founded in June 1997, to preserve and promote the history of the Lyles Station community. Its major project was restoration of the schoolhouse, intending to use it as a living history museum to educate others both about Lyles Station's history and the daily school routine in the early twentieth century. The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. Restoration of the site was completed in 2003.
Cairo Rosenwald School is a former school for African-American children located in the unincorporated community of Cairo, Sumner County, Tennessee. It was one of seven Rosenwald schools built in the county.
Durham's Chapel School, also known as Durham's Chapel Rosenwald School, is a former school for African-American children located in Gallatin, Tennessee, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Hope Rosenwald School, also known as Hope School, is a former school at 1971 Hope Station Road near Pomaria, South Carolina. As a Rosenwald School, it served rural African-American children in the early 20th century.
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Cornland School is a one-room schoolhouse located in Chesapeake, Virginia. "It is believed to be the oldest pre-Rosenwald School still standing in Tidewater Virginia." It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
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