In July 1870 the Virginia General Assembly passed an Act to Establish and Maintain a Uniform System of Public Free Schools. This law also required racial segregation in the schools. By November of that year the first public schools in Virginia had opened. Less than a year later, more than 2,800 public schools had been established, more than 700 of which were designated for African Americans.
The Double Spring Schoolhouse before restoration (Photographer unknown)
From an article in the Roanoke Times:
“Because there were no school buses and children primarily walked to school, schools were placed within 2 miles of students’ homes. This resulted in about 100 schools in the county by 1900. Some one- and two-room school houses were built, while some schools were housed in rented facilities.”
This is one of those country schools. The Double Spring Schoolhouse in Floyd County Virginia closed in 1948 and stood empty and overgrown for many years. Here’s the schoolhouse as it looked in 1934 …
… in 1991:
And here’s the schoolhouse today. A local family bought and restored the building and now it’s left unlocked for whomever wants to visit.
Again, from the Roanoke Times:
“Typically, teachers taught multiple grades — often all seven — in one room. The district school boards paid residents to deliver firewood to the schools in the winter. Often students were responsible for splitting the wood and keeping the stove well supplied.”
A photo of the students taken in the the early 1900s includes members of the Vest family, whose descendants bought the schoolhouse and restored it.
Photos of former teachers hang above a bucket for washing up.
Small details add to the ambience. They might not be strictly accurate to what was here in the past, but any schoolhouse in a rural community would have had a similar jumble of donated items.
On the back wall above the coathooks are a depiction of Mount Vernon, Gilbert Stuart’s unfinished portrait of George Washington and the flag.
People still add items, so the interior continues to evolve.
There’s even an amenity — not the original one, though.
In so many places it wouldn’t be possible to leave something like this open. It’d be vandalized, items stolen. But up here in the mountains, it stands unmolested. Occasionally there are visitors, sometimes a school group. The schoolhouse has become a collective project of memory.
One function of preservation is that an environment can take you back in time in a small way. Actors sometimes talk about how the right costumes and sets can make their job easier, projecting them into a story. An old building that’s been left as it was can enable anyone who enters it to do the same thing.
The Double Springs Schoolhouse is located at the intersection of Double Springs Road (870) and Stonewall Road (612) in Check, Virginia.