By Marie Roth

Special to the Enterprise

The school campus at 160 Campbell Road in Mocksville has a long history of many names, buildings, and purposes.

Several graduates and researchers are seeking to compile a history of the school buildings, and this information will be placed on an interpretive sign near the flagpole. Similar signs in Davie County are the Civil War sign in front of Mocksville Town Hall and the two signs denoting early schools in Cooleemee.

At this site, about 1925, a Rosenwald school was built for black children. There were four teachers.

Julius Rosenwald was president of Sears and established a fund that helped to build better schools for blacks and for Jewish children. (Davie County had another Rosenwald School in Cooleemee. Both buildings no longer exist.)  Building the $20,000 school was started with seed money ($1,500) from the Rosenwald fund and the rest was raised by Davie residents. There were standard floor plans.

Using Google Earth and its historical imagery feature, an aerial shot from 1998 shows the Campbell Road Rosenwald school still standing. The committee is attempting to determine when it was razed.

In 1933, the school was named Mocksville Colored Grade School and in 1936 it became Mocksville Colored High School. In 1939, it was called Davie County Training School. (The school trained teachers.)

In 1948, a bond election yielded a new building with nine classrooms, office, first aid and library.  Since 2006, this building has been used as Central Davie Alternative School.

In 1951, before integration, this was the only high school in the county for black students. It was comprised of grades one through 12 with 432 pupils.

Other structures have been built on the campus and names of the schools have continued to change as different functions were created.

This information was gathered by the author of History of Davie County Schools.  This book is available at Davie County Public Library. An article written by Magalene Gaither about the schools is included in the book.

Further research about this campus is ongoing in preparation for the commemorative sign explaining the long and varied history of the school. Readers are asked to contact Clyde or Gladys Scott at 751.5364, Magalene Gaither at 998.8278, or Marie Roth at GenealogyMarie@gmail.com if they can provide data, personal memories, or photographs of the buildings.