July 26, 2011 Coats
Museum News
Forty-eight stars were shining on the U.S. flag in 1921; the 19th Amendment had allowed females to vote on the Coats School Bond and the Lincoln Memorial was being constructed in Washington, D.C. In Coats, N.C., the craftsmen were busy constructing a new school on the Coats campus. Some of the students might have watched the activity from the windows of the old schoolhouse which would years later be preserved as the Coats Museum.
The new school building was a tri-level brick structure consisting of a basement and two upper floors. Mr. Wade Turlington recalled to his daughter, Martha T. Parrish, that the basement was dug out by mules and scoops and manpower. Turlington credited Delma and Joe Grimes as being the carpenters on site (Martha Turlington, “Wade Turlington Interview”-July , 2003).
On the top floor of the 1920-21 school was an auditorium. The stage was about four steps high. The steps are still in the old decrepit building on the old Coats School campus. The third floor also housed the school bell to signal fire drills or a fire. That bell is located on the Coats Elementary School campus thanks to the Eagle Scout project of Jonas Parrish, son of Mark and Judy Parrish.
When this building was completed and opened in the spring of 1921, the total cost of the building was $55,000.00. C.O. Small was principal in 1920-a fact that I did not know when I compiled a history of the Grove Township schools for the 1985 Coats School Reunion project book, “Together We Leave”. However, T.T. Lanier was the first principal in the brick school which had no central water, bathrooms or heat.
It was not until May of 1926 that an architect by the name of Cannady had made necessary measurements in order to draw plans for the new heating plant and sanitary equipment at Coats School (The “Harnett County News” May 13, 1926).
When Coats High School opened on October 11, for the 1926-27 session, an up-to-date modern heating system had been installed. The building was now supplied with water from the J. McKay Byrd’s water tank which received water from the cement cistern at the Coats spring. Indoor toilets were ready to be installed (The “Harnett County News” October 21, 1926).
Coats School opened on October 5, 1931 with a fair attendance. For lack of an auditorium which had been built into six nice classrooms, the students, patrons and friends stood on the steps outside to hear John McKay Byrd speak. Again this session he offered a five dollar gold piece to the best all around student in the 1931-32 school year (The “Harnett County News” October 22, 1931). Would you not love to know who won that gold piece?
It was during this time frame of the 1920’s that the Rosenwald School came on the scene. According to our fellow museum volunteer, Carsie Denning, Sr., who wrote that Julius Rosenwald, the son of Jewish immigrants, a millionaire and a major stockholder in the Sears, Roebuck and Company, traveled to nineteen southeastern states seeking funds to construct over five thousand schools for African American students.
Some southern states provided no more than one tenth as much tax funds for black schools as they did for white schools. The “Harnett County News” August 5, 1926 edition recorded that the Harnett County Board of Education let a contract to D.J. McLeod and C. Covington of Linden for the construction of seven colored schools ranging in price from $1,450 to $4,000. The total contract price was $16,500.00. They were to be known as Rosenwald Schools. From the Rosenwald funds came about 25 percent of the price of the school, 50 percent from the county and the remaining was to be raised by local taxation in the colored school district in which the school was located. All of the improved schools for colored people in Harnett County had been erected this way.
Coats had one Rosenwald school according to Denning. It was located just east of Mason Street. It burned in the late 1940’s wrote Denning and he said the students then attended other schools out in the country. Some of the schools were brick but they all had a similar floor plan. Classrooms were built around an auditorium. Classrooms were entered from an aisle that was around the seated area of the auditorium. Rosenwald supplied the plans.
A final question—did any of you ever go into the brick Oakdale School which was built in 1923-24 and closed in 1950 when the students were consolidated into the Grove # 3 School in Coats? The students who had attended the Grove #1 Ennis School attended Oakdale. Was this structure built with floor plans like the Rosenwald Schools?
The Coats Museum volunteers enjoyed a visit last week from Roy Tart of Dunn and Mack Ray Turlington of Fayetteville. Mack attended Coats School until Grade Nine when he transferred to Dunn High School and made a name for himself on the football field, He later played on scholarship at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. What was amazing was that Roy could tell you the scores of all the football games played by Mack. Mack is a descendent of the Ellis Langdon Family and Oscar and Virgina Sorrell Turlington family of Turlington Crossroads. Thanks to the H.L. Sorrell, Jr. family for their gift to the Coats Museum Endowment to honor the memory of Pauline Stephenson Sorrell.
Visit our Coats Museum website at coatsmuseum.com.
Forty-eight stars were shining on the U.S. flag in 1921; the 19th Amendment had allowed females to vote on the Coats School Bond and the Lincoln Memorial was being constructed in Washington, D.C. In Coats, N.C., the craftsmen were busy constructing a new school on the Coats campus. Some of the students might have watched the activity from the windows of the old schoolhouse which would years later be preserved as the Coats Museum.
The new school building was a tri-level brick structure consisting of a basement and two upper floors. Mr. Wade Turlington recalled to his daughter, Martha T. Parrish, that the basement was dug out by mules and scoops and manpower. Turlington credited Delma and Joe Grimes as being the carpenters on site (Martha Turlington, “Wade Turlington Interview”-July , 2003).
On the top floor of the 1920-21 school was an auditorium. The stage was about four steps high. The steps are still in the old decrepit building on the old Coats School campus. The third floor also housed the school bell to signal fire drills or a fire. That bell is located on the Coats Elementary School campus thanks to the Eagle Scout project of Jonas Parrish, son of Mark and Judy Parrish.
When this building was completed and opened in the spring of 1921, the total cost of the building was $55,000.00. C.O. Small was principal in 1920-a fact that I did not know when I compiled a history of the Grove Township schools for the 1985 Coats School Reunion project book, “Together We Leave”. However, T.T. Lanier was the first principal in the brick school which had no central water, bathrooms or heat.
It was not until May of 1926 that an architect by the name of Cannady had made necessary measurements in order to draw plans for the new heating plant and sanitary equipment at Coats School (The “Harnett County News” May 13, 1926).
When Coats High School opened on October 11, for the 1926-27 session, an up-to-date modern heating system had been installed. The building was now supplied with water from the J. McKay Byrd’s water tank which received water from the cement cistern at the Coats spring. Indoor toilets were ready to be installed (The “Harnett County News” October 21, 1926).
Coats School opened on October 5, 1931 with a fair attendance. For lack of an auditorium which had been built into six nice classrooms, the students, patrons and friends stood on the steps outside to hear John McKay Byrd speak. Again this session he offered a five dollar gold piece to the best all around student in the 1931-32 school year (The “Harnett County News” October 22, 1931). Would you not love to know who won that gold piece?
It was during this time frame of the 1920’s that the Rosenwald School came on the scene. According to our fellow museum volunteer, Carsie Denning, Sr., who wrote that Julius Rosenwald, the son of Jewish immigrants, a millionaire and a major stockholder in the Sears, Roebuck and Company, traveled to nineteen southeastern states seeking funds to construct over five thousand schools for African American students.
Some southern states provided no more than one tenth as much tax funds for black schools as they did for white schools. The “Harnett County News” August 5, 1926 edition recorded that the Harnett County Board of Education let a contract to D.J. McLeod and C. Covington of Linden for the construction of seven colored schools ranging in price from $1,450 to $4,000. The total contract price was $16,500.00. They were to be known as Rosenwald Schools. From the Rosenwald funds came about 25 percent of the price of the school, 50 percent from the county and the remaining was to be raised by local taxation in the colored school district in which the school was located. All of the improved schools for colored people in Harnett County had been erected this way.
Coats had one Rosenwald school according to Denning. It was located just east of Mason Street. It burned in the late 1940’s wrote Denning and he said the students then attended other schools out in the country. Some of the schools were brick but they all had a similar floor plan. Classrooms were built around an auditorium. Classrooms were entered from an aisle that was around the seated area of the auditorium. Rosenwald supplied the plans.
A final question—did any of you ever go into the brick Oakdale School which was built in 1923-24 and closed in 1950 when the students were consolidated into the Grove # 3 School in Coats? The students who had attended the Grove #1 Ennis School attended Oakdale. Was this structure built with floor plans like the Rosenwald Schools?
The Coats Museum volunteers enjoyed a visit last week from Roy Tart of Dunn and Mack Ray Turlington of Fayetteville. Mack attended Coats School until Grade Nine when he transferred to Dunn High School and made a name for himself on the football field, He later played on scholarship at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. What was amazing was that Roy could tell you the scores of all the football games played by Mack. Mack is a descendent of the Ellis Langdon Family and Oscar and Virgina Sorrell Turlington family of Turlington Crossroads. Thanks to the H.L. Sorrell, Jr. family for their gift to the Coats Museum Endowment to honor the memory of Pauline Stephenson Sorrell.
Visit our Coats Museum website at coatsmuseum.com.