{"nrhp_refnum":"01000416","name":"St. Matthews School","other_names":["St. Matthew School"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"US 401, 0.5 mi NE of NC 2213","address_restricted":false,"city":"Raleigh","county":"Wake County","state":"NC","lat":35.860361745000034,"lon":-78.56110954699994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2001-04-25","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Black","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-story frame two-teacher Rosenwald school building near Raleigh in Wake County, North Carolina, built in 1922 on a two-acre tract along US 401.","why_significant":"It is one of only five surviving Rosenwald Schools in Wake County, out of twenty-one built between 1919 and 1928. It served as an educational and social center for the local African American community from 1922 to 1949. It is significant in education, social history and ethnic heritage.","narrative":"Built in 1922 near Raleigh, St. Matthews School is a one-story frame schoolhouse on a hilltop beside St. Matthews Baptist Church. It was constructed from a standard two-teacher plan supplied by the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, with money from the foundation, the local African American community and the Wake County school board. The building has a hip roof, weatherboard siding, large nine-over-nine windows, two classrooms divided by a folding partition, and a third room used for industrial and home economics work. Grades one through seven were taught here until the school closed in 1949. Beyond classes, it hosted plays, adult education, home demonstration programs and meetings between farmers and county agents. The county sold it to the church trustees in 1949, and it was converted to apartments, then stood vacant and deteriorating in the late 1980s. The congregation began a full restoration in 1995. It is one of five Rosenwald schools remaining in Wake County and still serves as a community meeting hall.","period_of_significance":"1922-1949","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Vernacular (Rosenwald two-teacher school plan)","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"Now owned by St. Matthews Baptist Church and used as a social hall and for community meetings after a restoration begun in 1995.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:52.712824-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/71/7186/47718671/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/01000416.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47718671","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthews_School_(North_Carolina)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21261645"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/wake-county/st-matthews-school-01000416/"}