{"nrhp_refnum":"09001301","name":"Beulah Grove Lodge No. 372, Free and Accepted York Masons-Pleasant Grove School","other_names":["Pleasant Grove Colored School"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2525 Old Lower River Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Douglasville","county":"Douglas County","state":"GA","lat":33.70783589200005,"lon":-84.65755378799997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2010-02-03","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Education","Black","Social History"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story wood-frame building on Old Lower River Road, about 6.2 miles south of Douglasville in Douglas County, Georgia, built around 1910 by lodge and church members as an African-American Masonic lodge on the second floor and a school on the first.","why_significant":"It is argued to be locally significant under Criterion A for its role as an educational and social center for a rural African-American community during segregation. Under Criterion C it is a good local example of a rural lodge-and-school building that retains most of its original materials and character-defining features.","narrative":"Built around 1910 near Douglasville, this two-story wooden building served a rural African-American community as both a school and a Masonic lodge. Children were taught on the first floor, while Beulah Grove Lodge No. 372 and the Order of the Eastern Star met upstairs. Lodge members and Pleasant Grove Baptist Church members built it, with area builder John Love leading the effort. It sits on stacked-rock foundations with hand-hewn joists, and red tarpaper was added over the vertical board siding in 1962. Inside, the first floor keeps its flushboard walls and ceiling, and two lodge benches remain. Classes ran until the mid-1930s, and lodge use continued into the 1950s. Later the church used it as fellowship hall space and then for storage. It was listed for its role in education, ethnic heritage, social history and architecture, as an example of the church- and lodge-supported schools that served Black children in rural Georgia.","period_of_significance":"c.1910-1959","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"No style","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Current function listed as work in progress; the building was used as church fellowship hall space from 1975 to 1998 and for storage since then. The stairs to the second floor are no longer extant.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:42.750602-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/09001301.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09001301/9b0ae6a5e3-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09001301/9b0ae6a5e3-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Blastoids","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beulah_Grove_Lodge_372_-_Pleasant_Grove_School.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Blastoids</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:Beulah_Grove_Lodge_372_-_Pleasant_Grove_School.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93207884","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beulah_Grove_Lodge_No._372,_Free_and_Accepted_York_Masons","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55605297"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/douglas-county/beulah-grove-lodge-no-372-free-and-accepted-york-masons-pleasant-grove-school-09001301/"}