Vacant school in Kentucky
Oliver School, Winchester Kentucky
Oliver School, was built in 1939 on the site where schools for African American students existed since 1892. Open until 1956, it provided the greatest educational opportunities for African-American students in Winchester and Clark County. The education of African Americans within Kentucky and elsewhere throughout the Southern states occurred much differently than for Whites, and is marked by great challenges of funding for adequate facilities. Often, schools for Blacks were not built in an enduring way. The Oliver Street School building stood, at its construction, as a remarkably well-constructed edifice. It was also the only place in the community where African-Americans received education at the secondary level. The Oliver Street School is the only surviving historic community high school structure, as both the Winchester High School and the original Clark County High School buildings have been demolished.
Clark County, Kentucky, was established in 1792, the year Kentucky gained statehood. The population of Blacks in antebellum Clark County varied from a low of 5,000 people to a high of 13,000 people in 1860 prior to the end of the Civil War (1860 U.S. Census). During this time, of course, the County's African American population was not formally educated in schools. In isolated instances, blacks received education during antebellum years due to the benevolence of slave owners. Judge Charles Stephen French was one who gave his slaves "religious and industrial training." Philip B. Winn taught his slaves to read and write; one of them, George R. Gardner, proved so adept at business that after gaining his freedom he amassed an estate of $25,000.
Immediately after emancipation, little formal education was available to blacks in Winchester or in Clark County. The first school in the county was started in 1866, yet was so unstable that it took place in a rented building. In 1869 the Freedman's Bureau gave money to build the first permanent school for blacks in Winchester, after blacks themselves had raised money to purchase the lot. This building went up at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, and survived at least into the 1930s. The first school in the county outside of Winchester was erected in Howard's Creek in 1870.
Among the first known efforts to provide general education for Blacks came in 1880, with election of a board of trustees composed of African American men. This marked an effort to organize and support a school system independent of the white-only County school system. It operated for 15 years. The 1880s board of trustees was elected, and consisted of J. T. Taul, Dan Baker and M. Bell. One measure of success for this effort was the proliferation of schools that arose. By 1886, 11 black schools were in operation within the county.
Perhaps some of Winchester's early success in educating blacks benefited from an unusual nearby institution, Berea College, one of the nation's first places to educate blacks and whites together. As early as 1855, blacks could obtain teaching degrees from Berea, which is 30 miles south of Winchester. In fact, the black school trustees named G.A. Benton, a Berea graduate, as the first principal of the black County system, and named Lizzie Hummons, Carrie N. Wills, Julia A Benton, and Nettie David as teachers. Benton's wife, also a Berea alumna, operated a school out of their home for a time.
Berea-educated Benton occupied a vastly important role in local educational affairs and in promoting the social stability of Winchester's African American community. In Winchester, as elsewhere in the state, the principal had to maintain the school's operation under extreme pressures of under-funding. In 1880 Benton began by organizing the County's black school system according to professional models he learned about at Berea. He started a generalized system of graded education for the school that resulted in fewer grade divisions than in the 8-grade elementary white schools.
In the mid-1880s, a local shift in the local school financing resulted in the temporary closure of the main school for African Americans in Winchester. In 1885, Winchester became a 4th-class city, earning the right to collect taxes to pay for a city school system independent of the county school system. As part of this change, the city named a school board with white trustees, who took control of the black school in town, closing it for a time. This resulted in a local controversy over the governance of black education; did it lay in the hands of the trustees and Berea-educated Benton working for the County, or under the newly formed white-only City school system? During this controversy, the main Winchester school for blacks was closed, and classes were conducted in several locations, such as the old laundry on South Highland, the building at the corner of Washington and Oliver Street, and Mrs. Benton's home.
With the adoption of the state's new constitution in 1891, blacks in Winchester began to campaign for greater control of the separate school system. In 1892, a local bond issue was passed that financed the construction of a new school. On the Oliver Street site, a 6-room school began construction.
Benton's contributions in the 1880s laid a solid organizational and educational groundwork that led to the construction of the school, but by the early 1890s local disputes weakened his framework. Construction on the Oliver Street School was not completed. In 1893, the County's black board of trustees replaced Benton with J.H. Mingo, and replaced Mingo in 1894 with J.H. Garvin. Amid this seeming chaos, in 1895, Winchester's white school system took control of the city's black school system, and completed construction of the building.
In 1895, a defined course of study was given for the grades, and the first class of eleven students graduated from the school. The board subsequently adopted a two-year high school course of study, and in June 1897, a class of six students completed the course and graduated.
Engle's statistics give an overview of education of Clark County blacks from the 1890s through the later 1920s. Enrollment figures show a steady increase in the number of children in the system from 1890-1916, then a gradual decline in enrollment from 1917-1927. It took several years for construction of schools to meet the demand of students. The County Superintendent's annual report of 1897 notes that many students were schooled in churches or other buildings. By the 1920s the county had caught up with that demand, creating 15 black school districts and building 15 frame schools and one stone school. These schools collectively contained 2000 seats, and were populated by 20 teachers, 10 male and 10 female. But by the late-1920s, the system of one-room schools spread across the county had come to be seen as inefficient. By 1928, the County only operated eight one-room schools, estimating the total value of that physical plant at $1,200, with their furnishings being worth $1,000. This low figure contrasts with the Oliver Street School's value in 1928, which was $46,280.
The increasing value of Oliver Street School over time occurred through expansion of the building and its property expansions that paralleled a growing curriculum. In 1904, the building was remodeled to a larger faculty, as music, drawing and domestic science were added to the course study. In 1909, the faculty grew to twelve members, and manual training was added to the study course. Principal Garvin resigned in 1917 to serve in World War I, and E.S. Taylor, who was assistant Principal, took over.
Taylor organized the school so that it divided students into a Junior and Senior High School. In 1923, the Board of Education purchased a nearby house occupying the southern one-half of lot twenty-one of the plat of Oliver's Addition, to erect a gymnasium with the aid of community welfare workers. Taylor also secured a four-acre playground for the children, through raising one thousand dollars each from local sources, from the Board of Education and from the Harmon Playground Fund Commission of New York. That 4-acre playground occupies a separate location of the school, three blocks away.
In November 17, 1923 the Board of Education continued to expand the property, purchasing a house and lot on the southern one-half of lot twenty-one in Oliver's Addition.
E.E. Reed became Principal in 1928, upon Taylor's death. That year, Oliver School became a four-year high school. Reed expanded the physical plant by having a gymnasium constructed and a playground on the left side of the school property. He also raised the educational standards of the school by laboring to have the school accredited with the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.
Mr. Reed resigned in 1932, and Scott V. Mitchell guided the school through the Depression Era. The school's survival required extraordinary help from the African American community; individuals, local businesses, and churches contributed to the operations. In 1937 G.W. Adams succeeded Mitchell. He was instrumental in the erection of the new building in 1938. That year, the Board of Education gave to the school the old remaining books from the white school to continue education. In 1938 the wood-frame portion of Oliver School, used for high school classes, was demolished. During the second half of 1938 the school building was completed, making the entire school appear to be constructed at the same time.
The Oliver Street School had the same financial support as the white schools. The rules and regulations were governed by the Winchester Public School Corporation until 1944. On December 8, 1944, the three schools were turned over to the City of Winchester for the purchase price of $177,625.00 and placed under the New Deal bond issued.
The Oliver Street School was an all-African American High School and Elementary School until local efforts to integrate education began to change the system's organization in 1955. The school-renewed bond was to serve the area known as the Oliver School District under Winchester Board of Education. The building came under a contract of lease, and was rented to the City of Winchester Commission on August 23, 1955. The lease was an effort to reconstruct the following schools: Hickman Street, Fannie Bush, and Oliver Street School. In 1956, following the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision, and the federal ruling regarding school desegregation, Oliver High school was terminated and African-American high school students were assimilated into the two other existing high schools in the community.
On February 20, 1956, the Winchester Board of Education terminated the High School. Integration was begun in the Winchester High School and Clark County High School in 1957. Both groups tried to make the venture a success. Almost one-fourth the city high school population was African American in 1956. The Hickman Street School is the only elementary school that was integrated, and had 26 African Americans among its 278 students. In the midst of this social and educational change in the community, the year 1956 marked two other important changes for the Oliver School, the construction of the multi-purpose building, and the retirement of G.W. Adams as principal.
The African-American schools in Winchester were more than just educational institutions. They, along with churches, served additional purposes that provided services to youth in the area. For instance, schools and churches sheltered Boy Scout and Girl Scout activities. The school had a Parent-Teacher Association that contributed in many useful ways. Public Library facilities were made available during the summer and the school year. Recreational activities were provided through baseball, arts, and 4-H camps. Until the closing of the Oliver Street School in 1969, its principal was Rev. George Frazier. The Oliver Street School graduated a total of 392 African Americans since 1956 and was supervised by a total of eight principals who acted as leaders as well as educators in Winchester's African-American community.
Oliver Street School closed as an active school in 1969. It reopened in March 1971 as a Citizens Community Center Organization. It was renamed the Whitney Young Community Center, helping the people of Winchester as a community service building. It housed different youth programs during the time when school is not in session. It had a daycare and Head Start program. It also served as a social service and counseling program for the community. It closed its doors again in the late 1970s for lack of funding.
Building Description
The Oliver School is a three-story brick building located at 30 Oliver Street, Winchester, seat of Clark County, Kentucky. The building is located in a residential neighborhood, bounded on both sides (north and south) by residential-zoned property, on the front by a city street (Oliver) and on the rear by an alley. Like many historic urban schools, the site is highly confined, with virtually no excess outside space.
The site has a history of use as a school beginning in 1892. In that year, work was begun on a wood-framed wood-sided six-room schoolhouse; it was completed in 1895. In 1904 that school building was expanded to include high school classes, and by 1928 a gymnasium was added. Between 1928 and 1938 the grade school in the southern half of the building was demolished and replaced by brick building. The wood-sided high school building on the north half of the site was demolished in the summer of 1938, and rebuilt from brick, with construction continuing until spring of 1939. The school was expanded again in 1956 with the addition of a multi-purpose building. The building closed as a school in 1969.
The building, as it appeared in 1939, has a symmetrical plan, and the front entry is half a level above grade, approached by exterior concrete steps. The lowest level is about half below grade and is formed of concrete walls. The building has a flat roof composed of tar and felt, covered with bituminous roofing. The 1956 multi-purpose addition's roof was also flat, but has been changed into a pitch roof with metal tin being its cover. The main entries of both the 1938 and 1956 buildings face toward Oliver Street, in an east-southeasterly direction.
The interior has walls of plaster and lath and hardwood flooring with boards running from the front to the back of the school. On the second and third level these floors are in acceptable condition, but show some spots of water damage from the leaks in the ceiling. The wood windows of the original building will require either replacement or significant rehabilitation. These windows measure 7'-8" in height and 4' 0" in width. The windows are double-hung sashes. Each room has 4 windows lighting it. The upper two levels contain classrooms roughly equal size: 33'10" x 25'2". School offices consisted of secretary and principal's office divided by a wooden door with square windows. Bathrooms consist of 5 stalls and an oval elongated sink with two faucets.
The 1956 multipurpose addition to the 1938 building contains a gymnasium, cafeteria, stage, kitchen and offices, making no attempt to re-create the architectural character of the original building. It is a utilitarian structure constructed to meet code and usage requirements of the time of its construction.
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