ORD-2015-004 (approved as ORD-2015-012) Ordinance Designating the Property Known As The White Cross School In Orange County, North Carolina As A Local Historic Landmark

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7 The St. Mary's School is similar in form to the Murphey School, with a classroom building dating from 1931 connected by a hyphen to a front - gabled auditorium wing added in 1936. However, the brick structures are simpler in design and detail, and retain less historic fabric. The present main school building, which replaced the earlier school destroyed by fire in November, 1930, retains its original form but has replacement front doors and windows that are not the full height of the window opening. The largely- intact exterior of the pedimented auditorium wing is notable for its full range of brick pilasters featuring simple limestone bases and caps rising from a stone water table.' The interior of the school has carpeted floors, dropped ceilings, and the main hallway through the center of the building has been subdivided. While the White Cross School site has been modified with the installation of fencing and playground equipment in front of the building, these changes are not connected to the building itself and are ultimately reversible. Further, the installation of additional bathrooms and temporary partition walls in the northwest classroom do not negatively impact the historic integrity of the structure nor detract from the understanding of the historic floor plan and are also reversible. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW A nineteenth - century mining and milling town, White Cross (originally called Gath, then Teer), was given its present name for the pristine white clay that runs through the area. As early as the late 1880s, the private White Cross Academy was in operation, though its exact location is not known. By 1917 -1918, the first White Cross School, a structure was erected about a mile to the southeast, on present -day Carl Durham Road in Bingham Township. The school was an all -white school that accepted both male and female students. By the early 1920s, the need for a new school had become apparent and the school board began visiting potential sites in April of 1922.$ Meanwhile attendance continued to rise with enrollment reaching 11 high school students and 52 elementary school students by 1923. On July 9, 1924, the Orange County Board of Education purchased 7.98 acres on the north side of NC Highway 54 West in Bingham Township from Fred J. Eubanks.9 That same month, the School Board awarded A. R. Davis, a contractor from Burlington, the contract for the construction of the six -room brick building.10 The building was completed and received by the Board of Education in March 1925, at which point smaller schools in the area were consolidated into the White Cross School with the children transported by bus to the new school. By 1927, the new school had an enrollment of 59 boys and 73 girls. This first building burned in early 1933, forcing the Board of Education to pass a motion on February 6, 1933 calling for a special meeting with the insurance adjuster "for the purpose of agreeing on the amount of insurance for the White Cross School Building," as the first step toward rebuilding the lost facility." In April of 1933, a delegation from the White Cross community approached the Board of Education to request that they rebuild the school. The Board did not take action until May Orange County Board of Education Minutes, Nov. 5 and 12, 1930, and Jan. 9, 1931 document the fire and the efforts of contractor J. H. Liner of Cedar Grove to rebuild the school within a few months; also Nov. 4, 1935 and Dec. 7, 1936, when the Board hired Atwood and Weeks to serve as architects for a major school improvement campaign funded by the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works (later PWA) that included new auditoriums at Murphey and St. Mary's schools. s Orange County Board of Education minutes, April 10, 1922. 9 Orange County Deed Book 83, Page 309. 10 Orange County Board of Education minutes, July 28, 1924. 11 Orange County Board of Education minutes, Feb. 6, 1933. The fire appears to have occurred after January 2, 1933 as there was no mention of the White Cross School in the board's minutes of that meeting.