Agenda 10-03-23; 4-b - National Register Recommendation for Ridge Road School

Browse Search

22 NPS Form 10-900-a OMB Approval No.1024-0018 (8-86) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet Section number 8 Page 16 Ridge Road School Orange County, NC the 5V-crimp metal-panel roof, white-painted German siding, brick pier foundation, brick interior chimney, and fenestration. Two double-hung four-over-four sash wood windows light the shed rooms flanking the east entrance porch that shelters two single-leaf five-horizontal-panel doors. Although the groups of tall multi-pane wood sash classroom windows on the west elevation are smaller than the original sash, original opening size is apparent. The interior features beadboard-sheathed ceilings and walls, narrow-board wood floors, flat-board window and door surrounds, single-leaf five-horizontal-panel doors, and a stage. The ceilings and upper portions of the walls are painted white, while the approximately three-foot-tall lower portions of each wall are painted dark brown to emulate wainscoting. The interior window and door surrounds and doors are also painted dark brown. The wide opening in the central partition wall contains a beadboard panel that slides up into the wall cavity. The blackboard that was mounted on the south face of the panel and all other black and bulletin boards in the classrooms have been removed. Wood-burning metal stoves with round flues project at an angle from the central chimney into each classroom. The south shed room, which functioned as a kitchen, has pale-green-painted wall and ceiling beadboard and cabinets with vertical-board-and-batten doors and wood countertops. White- painted beadboard sheathes the walls and ceiling of the north shed room, a coat closet. Ridge Road School is one of only a few extant rural, frame, early-twentieth-century public schools erected to serve Orange County's African American children. None of the similar 1920s Rosenwald schools survive. Most comparable schools constructed by the OCBE are in poor condition or have been altered. Carr, Morris Grove, and Jordan's Grove schools are all long-vacant and deteriorated. Carr School, a gable-roofed weatherboarded building in northwest Orange County, was built in two phases, the first room at a cost of$300 in 1908 and the second in 1920. Funding for the gable-roofed, weatherboarded, two-room Morris Grove School in Chapel Hill Township was approved in May 1929. African American community members contributed $250 of the cost and provided lumber to builders Louis Webb and Labon Hogan. Jordan's Grove, a gable-roofed, weatherboarded, two-room school in northern Orange County had one room when constructed in 1915; the second was added in 1930.33 Simply finished one- and two-room frame schools continued to be built in rural Orange County during the 1930s. In June 1932, the OCBE agreed to subsidize construction of new buildings or additions that would result in five one-to three-room schoolsMerritts, Ridge Road, Sunnyside, White Oak Grove, and Sartin—to serve African American students. Community members were required to supply the lumber necessary for each building. In August 1932, R. J. Forrest was engaged to erect Ridge Road School and the one-room Sartin School for a total cost of$1,135. Chapel Hill architect H. D. Carter, an associate of the Durham architecture firm Atwood and Weeks, revised NCDPI drawings in 1933 for the brick White Cross School constructed after the earlier building was destroyed by fire that year. In August 1935, Carter managed the bid process for buildings or additions at four African American schools, indicating 33 OCBE meeting minutes,July 27, 1908,May 10, 1920,May 6, 1929;Free Spirit Freedom,Freedom Through Knowledge(Hillsborough: Free Spirit Freedom,May 2017), 14-17,20-27.