The Parrish Hill Rosenwald School. located a short distance east of the seat of Charles City County, operated from 1920 to 1959, when it was closed as part of a county school consolidation plan. It was the last of the county’s six Rosenwald Schools to cease operations. Parrish Hill was one of the thousands of schools constructed for African Americans in southern states during the first part of the 20th century with the support of philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Fund, and the expertise of the Tuskegee Institute under Booker T. Washington’s leadership. The school building follows a “two teacher” standard plan developed by architect Samuel L. Smith, a director of the Rosenwald Fund. Parrish Hill was privately owned until the county government purchased it in 2021, and at that time was one of only three Rosenwald schools still extant in Charles City County.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia