{"nrhp_refnum":"78000981","name":"Berry Schools","other_names":["Berry College","Berry Academy"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"N of Rome on U.S. 27","address_restricted":false,"city":"Rome","county":"Floyd County","state":"GA","lat":34.30426761900006,"lon":-85.21137867512338,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-07-21","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Conservation","Education","Architecture","Religion","Social History"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district near Rome in Floyd County, Georgia, made up of the Berry College campus, the Berry Academy campus, a forested corridor between them, Oak Hill (Martha Berry's family home), the House o' Dreams, a waterwheel and mill, Possum Trot Church and the Richard W. Wood House. The nominated area is about 5,300 acres.","why_significant":"The Berry Schools are significant as an educational innovation, built under Martha Berry's direction to educate mountain children of north Georgia. Work was part of every student's program, and students built most of the buildings themselves. The campuses form an architectural record of the schools' growth from 1902 into the 1930s and later.","narrative":"Berry Schools Historic District near Rome, Georgia, covers about 5,300 acres of a 30,000-acre holding, mostly forest. It includes the Berry College campus, the Berry Academy campus, a wooded corridor known as The Stretch, Oak Hill (Martha Berry's family home, built in 1847), the House o' Dreams, a mill and waterwheel, and Possum Trot Church. Martha Berry began teaching Sunday School to mountain children around 1900, opened a boys' school in 1902 and a girls' school in 1909, and added a college program in 1926. Students paid little or nothing in cash but worked rotating shifts, and they built most of the campus from logs cut on the property and bricks they made. The buildings range from log cabins to a Collegiate Gothic women's residence group and coursed stone dormitories. The district was listed for its role in educating thousands of students through a work-based model.","period_of_significance":"1900-","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Classical, log, Collegiate Gothic, coursed stone","criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned by the Board of Trustees of Berry College and in use as a college and academy; some buildings serve as guest, faculty and staff housing.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:39.960638-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/78000981.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78000981/d85807dde2-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78000981/d85807dde2-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY 3.0","author":"Own work by Froggerlaura (talk)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Hall_at_Berry_College.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Own work by Froggerlaura (talk)</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Hall_at_Berry_College.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93207976","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_College","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4894781"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/floyd-county/berry-schools-78000981/"}