Price Public Elementary School | |
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| Location | Hasson and Spring Sts., Rogersville, Tennessee |
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| Coordinates | 36°24′34″N 83°0′32″W / 36.40944°N 83.00889°W |
| Area | less than one acre |
| Built | 1923 |
| NRHP reference No. | 88002538[1] |
| Added to NRHP | November 10, 1988 |
Price Public Elementary School, now known as Price Public Community Center and Swift Museum, is a former African-American school in Rogersville, Tennessee. It currently serves as a community center and home of the Swift Museum.
The site of the school was dedicated to African-American education in 1868, when Alexander Fain, Jordan Netherland, Albert Jones and Nathaniel Mitchell bought the land "for the purpose of building a schoolhouse for the education of colored children." A schoolhouse was built and used until the early 1900s. The current building replaced it in 1922.[2]
Price School operated until 1958, when it closed and its students were transferred to Swift High School, which was converted from a high school to a grade K-12 school.[3] When integration took place in Rogersville, during the 1960s, the city's African-American elementary school students were transferred to Rogersville City School, also a K-8 institution. The Price School building was subsequently used as a cannery, a community center, and a storage building,[2] then was abandoned and became run-down.
The school was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.[1]
The building underwent a restoration beginning in the mid-1990s as a result of cooperative efforts between the town, the local African-American community, the local American Legion Auxiliary, the Chamber of Commerce, the Rogersville Heritage Association, and other civic organizations.[3] The project was aided by a rural development grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.[2] Following restoration, in 2003 the Price Public Community Center opened in the building.[2] The Swift Museum in the center opened to the public in 2008.[4] The community center and museum offer resources for learning and teaching about African-American history and culture.[2][3]
