University President Leo M. Lambert and others from the campus community will celebrate the restoration of a small schoolhouse that was among the first public schools in the state when it opened in the 1850s just north of where Rhodes Stadium stands.
One of the first public schools in North Carolina served residents of western Alamance County through the latter half of the 19th century, welcoming children from nearby communities to learn in a two-room wooden building that included living quarters for a teacher.
Though it closed in the early 20th century and would later store grain, the school withstood the test of time until it was donated to Elon University four years ago for restoration and educational purposes. The campus will celebrate that restoration this week in a formal dedication ceremony.
DATE: Tuesday, May 6, 2014
TIME: 4 p.m.
LOCATION: Parking lot of Alumni Field House adjacent to Rhodes Stadium on North Williamson Avenue
PARTICIPANTS: Elon University President Leo M. Lambert; Deborah Long, interim dean of the School of Education; Carole Troxler, professor emerita of history from Elon University; Kaye Cable Murray, whose family gave to Elon University the land on which the school stands.
Lambert will join with young children and Elon students to ring an old-fashioned bell with ties to the university prior to opening the schoolhouse for tours.
Originally known as the Travis Creek School, and renamed the Cable School in the late 19th century, records indicate the schoolhouse was built in the early 1850s, about a decade after the state legislature first authorized local communities to levy a tax for supporting public education and receive matching state funds. Such facilities were known as “common schools.”