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11 <br /> NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approval No.1024-0018 <br /> (8-86) <br /> United States Department of the Interior <br /> National Park Service <br /> National Register of Historic Places <br /> Continuation Sheet <br /> Section number 8 Page 5 Ridge Road School <br /> Orange County, NC <br /> Statement of Significance <br /> Ridge Road School possesses significance at the local level under Criterion A in the areas of education <br /> and Black ethnic heritage and Criterion C for architecture. The school was built in 1932 on land owned <br /> by Black farmers Walter and Maggie Torian, whose house and outbuildings stood to the south. <br /> Community members supplied the lumber used by contractor R. J. Forrest to erect the two-classroom <br /> building. Teachers Ruth Stanfield Torian and Alethea Burt provided first-through seventh-grade <br /> instruction to African American youth during most of the school's operation from 1932 until spring 1951. <br /> In the fall of that year, students were assigned to Central High School in Hillsboro, which accommodated <br /> all grades. Ridge Road School subsequently functioned as a community gathering place, hosting civic <br /> meetings and educational programs. The one-story side-gable-roofed building is a rare intact example of <br /> a rural early-twentieth-century Orange County public school erected to serve African American children, <br /> one of only a few remaining in the county. Although original drawings for Ridge Road School have not <br /> been located, its form,plan, fenestration, and simple finishes are typical of the one- and two-room frame <br /> schools built during the 1930s based on standardized floor plans, elevations, specifications, and guidance <br /> issued by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's Division of Schoolhouse Planning. <br /> Ridge Road School displays standard characteristics including German siding, a 5V-crimp metal-panel <br /> roof, single-leaf five-horizontal-panel doors, double-hung four-over-four sash wood windows in the shed <br /> rooms, large classroom window openings,painted-beadboard-sheathed walls and ceilings, narrow-board <br /> wood floors, flat-board window and door surrounds, a beadboard panel that slides up into the central <br /> partition wall cavity, and a stage. The period of significance begins in 1932, when the school was <br /> constructed, and ends in 1951, when it ceased to be used for its original purpose. Although the building is <br /> owned by a religious institution, it meets the standard for Criteria Consideration A since its significance <br /> lies in secular themes independent of religious doctrine. <br /> Educational Context and Historical Background <br /> Although the community's name was originally spelled "Hillsborough, " the name was shortened to <br /> "Hillsboro"during the nineteenth century and that spelling was maintained until 1966 Therefore, <br /> "Hillsboro"is used in historic references and "Hillsborough"in current references. <br /> North Carolina's African American children were afforded limited educational opportunities during the <br /> nineteenth century. Religious groups including Moravians and the Society of Friends, known as Quakers, <br /> provided basic literacy lessons for free Blacks and enslaved people, and according to oral tradition, <br /> continued even after the General Assembly in 1830 enacted legislation forbidding the education of North <br /> Carolina's enslaved population. Public schools served only white children in some urban and rural areas <br /> beginning in 1840. In Orange County, the Board of Superintendents of Common Schools, organized in <br /> August 1839, divided the county into five-square-acre districts. During the 1844-1845 term, 1,347 male <br /> and 945 female white students received instruction from sixty teachers at fifty-seven schools. Enrollment <br />