Caldwell Rosenwald School

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

What is today the Burgess Supply carpet store in Huntersville, North Carolina, was once the Caldwell Rosenwald School. Erected in 1925, Caldwell is one of seven extant Rosenwald Schools (African American schools constructed with the support of community members and a matching grant from the Rosenwald Fund) in Mecklenburg county. Once the school was surrounded by rural farmland, but due to industrialization, the school is now in an urban part of town. Caldwell Rosenwald served African American children in the Lemley community of North Mecklenburg county. The building has gone through a few physical alterations. However, the building is still recognizable to those who study the Rosenwald School designs given its use of one of the Rosenwald Funds approved architectural designs.

Images

Historical image of Caldwell Rosenwald

Current image of the school, including renovations

Architecture, Window, Property, Neighbourhood

Current interior of the school

Community School Floor Plan No. 400

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

Caldwell Rosenwald was a four-room schoolhouse built during the 1924-1925 budget year. The school held grades first through eighth, two grades in each room. Walter S. and Ida Blakely deeded the land that the school stands on to the Mecklenburg Board of Education in 1924. The total cost of construction of the school was $5,200, which was a large amount of money at the time of construction. Of that total, $1,100 was paid by the Rosenwald Fund, $3,500 by the public, and $600 by the African-Americans in the Lemley community. It was constructed using Community School Floor Plan No. 400, which you can see in Rosenwald’s school plan book. It continued to educate the African-American children of the area until 1951 when the school was closed. The Caldwell Rosenwald school is often mistaken for the Caldwell Station school, located four miles away. Caldwell Station served white students in the Huntersville area.

In 1953, the building was sold by the Mecklenburg County Board of Education to Truman W. and Margie Burgess. The Burgess family began their upholstery business in the school building. In the 1960s, he added a warehouse building on the side of the former school building. During the 1960s through the 1980s, the Caldwell Rosenwald School was converted for use as a retail showroom, although the original structure was largely maintained. In a 1987 interview with family-member Ben Griffith, he stated that old students often stop by the store.

“My teacher in school told me she used to go here. People in the area have stopped by to say they have old school books from the building. We want to fix it up as much as we can like it was, with a display on its history. [1]

Caldwell Rosenwald is not listed on the National Register of Historic places, although it fits the criteria.

Sources

Elizabeth Martin. “On the Road with DHS… Former Schoolhouses.” Davidson Historical Society, Winter 2008

Ben Griffith, interview with Thomas W. Hanchett, January 19, 1987

“Negros to Hold Community Fair”, Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina), October 29, 1929: 13

Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds 1924 DB533:303

Fisk University, “Rosenwald Database,” http://rosenwald.fisk.edu (accessed December 2020)

Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds 1953 DB1570:297

Image Sources(Click to expand)

National Register of Historic Places, Caldwell School, Huntersville , North Carolina https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/historic-preservation-office/PDFs/ER%2017-1165.pdf

Julius Rosenwald Fund 1924:11, https://files.nc.gov/ncdcr/historic-preservation-office/PDFs/ER%2017-1165.pdf