{"nrhp_refnum":"03000535","name":"Powell Chapel School","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"620 Old Atlanta Hwy.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Newnan","county":"Coweta County","state":"GA","lat":33.41555882700004,"lon":-84.78504061399997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2003-06-23","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Education","Black"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A one-story wood-frame rural schoolhouse at 620 Old Atlanta Highway, north of Newnan in Coweta County, Georgia, built in 1936-37 for the surrounding African-American community.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it a good example of a rare surviving African-American rural school in Georgia, and one of the last wood-framed African-American community schools in Coweta County. It is significant under Criterion A for education and Black ethnic heritage, as the only school serving African-American children in the Newnan area during the historic period. It is significant under Criterion C as a once typical, now rare, early 20th-century rural school.","narrative":"Powell Chapel School is a one-story wood-frame schoolhouse north of Newnan, Georgia, built in 1936-37 to educate African-American children in the surrounding rural community. Parents and neighbors raised the money and labor themselves, reusing lumber from an old schoolhouse and hiring church member Willie Carlyle as carpenter. Women sold pies and cakes, and men cut and hauled wood to fund materials. The building has a side-gabled roof, pine siding, exposed rafter tails, a front-gable porch and a brick pier foundation. Additions in 1942 at each end allowed two classrooms and two teachers, where seven grades had once shared a single room. The school closed in the mid-1950s when Coweta County consolidated its schools. It is recognized for education and Black ethnic heritage as the only school serving African-American children in the Newnan area, and for architecture as a rare surviving example of a simple early 20th-century rural community school. It now serves social and church-related uses.","period_of_significance":"1937-1952","architect_builder":"Carlyle, Willie-Carpenter","architectural_style":"Other/Craftsman elements","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Currently used for social/clubhouse purposes and some church-related activities; the school closed in the mid-1950s. The well is abandoned and there is no water to the building.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:43.466245-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/03000535.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/03000535/f0e3bb6a15-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/03000535/f0e3bb6a15-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Gabrielle Micale","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Powell_Chapel_School_Front.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Gabrielle Micale</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Powell_Chapel_School_Front.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93207683","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Chapel_School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16978205"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/coweta-county/powell-chapel-school-03000535/"}