Oak Grove School
Why it's listed
Oak Grove School is a one-room, gable-front frame schoolhouse built around 1910 in the Washington Town community, just inside the northwest edge of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It is clad in weatherboards, stands on a brick foundation, and has a metal roof, a full-width shed-roof porch with square posts and six-over-six windows. For about forty years it educated African American children from the Bethania area, with one teacher at first handling six and later seven grades. Oral tradition holds that a local African American family donated the site, a church assisted, and the community gave money and labor, a pattern common to Black schools in the early twentieth-century South. As schools consolidated, only one or two grades were taught in its last years. After closing about 1950 it became a store and was altered. A restoration starting in 1998 returned much of its character, and it is considered the only known surviving one-room African American school of its kind in the county.
Significance in brief: The school is locally significant under Criterion A in education and black ethnic heritage. It served African American children from about 1910 to about 1950 and reflects the grassroots funding of Black schools across the South. It is described as the only known surviving example of the county's once common one-room African American schoolhouse.
Machine-generated summary. This summary was generated by a language model from the official nomination document and has not been reviewed line by line by an editor. It may contain errors. Check the source document before relying on any detail. Source: nomination document (PDF) · National Archives catalog entry. NRHP reference 02001668, listed December 31, 2002. Summary generated October 2026 (model claude-sonnet-5-5, prompt v1.0-2026-10-29, confidence medium).
Key facts
| Address | Oak Grove Circle, 0.3 mi. E of jct. with Bethabara Rd., Winston-Salem |
|---|---|
| County | Forsyth County |
| Listed | December 31, 2002 |
| Reference number | 02001668 |
| Resource type | Building |
| Period of significance | Ca. 1910 - ca. 1950 |
| Architectural style | No style |
| Criteria |
|
| Areas of significance | Education, Black |
| Level of significance | Local |
| Status (as stated in the nomination) | Listed as vacant/not in use. A restoration begun in 1998 replaced the floor, reproduced windows, removed a mid-century partition and added a wheelchair ramp and modern bathroom and kitchen in rear shed rooms. |
| Acreage | 0.5 |
| Coordinates | 36.17233, -80.32083 (NPS GIS) |
What listing means for this property
For a publicly owned building or structure, listing mainly matters when federal funds, permits or licences are involved: projects then go through Section 106 review so effects on the property are considered. Listing also strengthens applications for preservation grants and, for leased income-producing uses, can enable the federal rehabilitation tax credit.
Noted as vacant in the nomination. Nomination documents can be decades old; current status may differ. If you are considering buying an empty listed property, read the due-diligence checklist.
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; confirm with your State Historic Preservation Office or a qualified adviser.
Sources and further reading
- National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places database (snapshot May 2026), reference 02001668.
- Nomination form (PDF, National Archives) — catalog entry
- Wikipedia article (used for cross-checking only; text not reproduced here)
- Wikidata Q18705982
- This listing as JSON
Last updated October 2026. Found an error? See the editorial policy for how to report it.