The Dr. Henry B. Moorer House, also known as “The Sycamores,” was built in the 1870s in Henning, Tennessee. Reportedly, the home was the first brick home in the county. Moorer was one of the first doctors in the area and would travel the county providing medical care. According to his obituary, he was the mayor of Henning for 40 years. He served 20 two-year terms, often running unopposed.
Later his son, Emmett, called The Sycamores home.
The Allen-White School ruins in Whiteville, Tennessee, are the remaining artifacts of a brick Rosenwald School. Initially, the school was known as the Hardeman County Training School. The school began in 1905 in a Masonic lodge building. In 1919, the Rosenwald Foundation funded the building of a new elementary school on land next to the El Canaan Missionary Baptist Church. In 1930, the school added a junior high, and in 1932, it added high school grades. The first graduating class was in 1933. It was the only school for Black students in Hardeman County.
It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 and destroyed by arson in 2012.
There seems to be limited information on this church in La Grange, Tennessee. It is a historically Black congregation that began in 1913, and this building was constructed in 1925. According to obituaries, the church was active through at least the 1990s. The grounds are cared for, so the church may still hold occasional services.
Pocahontas School in Hardeman County, Tennessee, is a four-teacher type school. Built in 1924 using Rosenwald funds, the school educated Black schoolchildren until the late 1960s. Despite the passing of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, schools in Hardeman County did not desegregate until more than ten years later.
The school was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
I recently took a trip to Memphis. Like most trips, I planned a circuitous route using back roads. While plotting my path on Google Maps, I noticed a building identified as the LaGrange Rosenwald School. I immediately put it as a stopping point to photograph.
When I arrived in La Grange, I immediately doubted the providence of this building as a Rosenwald. There are no hallmark windows to bring light into the building, and I wondered if it was a heavily modified building. After doing some research, I could not find any confirmation that this building is a Rosenwald. It was a one-room school named the La Grange School.
Middle Tennessee State University assessed historic Black properties in Fayette County and created an informative storyboard titled “Fayette County: Places, Perspectives: African American Community-building in Tennessee, 1860-1920.” Since they did not include it in the comprehensive report, I believe it was not a Rosenwald school.
(I did update Google Maps to edit the name without Rosenwald.)
According to what I can find, researchers at Middle Tennessee State University were told by community members that this building once served as a fraternal lodge, funeral home, and store for the Black community of La Grange, Tennessee. They later found purchase of land in 1912 by the National Mosaic Templars of America, a Black benevolent organization.
