Lafayette School Gymnasium

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Featured by: AHPP

Location: Camden, Ouachita, 450 Smith Street (Southeast of the Ouachita County Road 561 and Ouachita County Road 562 intersection)

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c.1950 African-American school gymnasium.

Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 12/06/17

SUMMARY

The Lafayette School Gymnasium is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A with local significance for its associations with African-American education in the Camden area and Ouachita County. The Lafayette School Gymnasium, which was built c.1950, is the last remaining building from the Lafayette School campus. As the site of sporting events and other community gatherings, the Lafayette School Gymnasium has been an important community center and gathering place for Camden’s African-American community over the past fifty plus years. The changes to the interior of the building preclude its listing on the National Register, but the building still reflects what makes it significant and it can be listed on the Arkansas Register.

HISTORY OF THE PROPERTY

Ouachita County was created on November 29, 1842, with a bill in the Fourth Legislature that was signed by Governor Archibald Yell. The county was formed from land that was taken from the northwest part of Union County. After the formation of the county, the next task was to select a location for the county seat, and Ecore a Fabre was chosen although it was renamed Camden after Camden, South Carolina. Camden grew quickly because of its location on the Ouachita River. As was noted in the Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas in 1890:

Down to the present decade Camden and Ouachita Counties were practically one, and served as a depot of supplies for nearly a score of counties of Southern Arkansas, whose cotton bales lined all the streets leading to the wharf in thick procession. There is no doubt that Camden has always been by far the greatest cotton mart in Southern Arkansas, and so formidable was her position that previous to the present decade there were really no other towns in the county. This natural position of course will not be changed, and what is more, it has attracted the railways, so that in that respect her future prosperity seems more assured even than her past.[1]

From the nineteenth century on, education had a place in daily life in Ouachita County, and it was no different in Camden. In addition, at least by the latter half of the century, African Americans also had a role in education in the county. According to Goodspeed:

The public schools have grown slowly, but of late years have made marked improvement. Camden has seven white and three colored teachers. … For the year ending June 30, 1888, the enumeration was 2,860 white and 2,759 colored children, making a total of 5,119, an increase of 327 over 1887. In fifty-one school districts, from thirty-seven of which there were no reports, there were 1,431 white and 1,234 colored children taught, an aggregate of 2,665. [2]

By the first part of the twentieth century, additional and improved facilities were needed to educate the county’s African-American children, and in 1928 the Lafayette School was founded by school superintendent J. C. Gresham. Like many schools for African Americans across the south during the 1920s, Lafayette School benefited from the generosity of Julius Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Fund. During the Fund’s 1927-1928 budget year, a grant of $1,200 was given to build a four-teacher type school on the campus. The building’s total cost was $12,500, and in addition to the Rosenwald Fund grant, the local African-American community gave $800 with the remaining $10,500 coming from public funds.[3] During the time of the building’s construction, a Parent Teacher Association was formed and Mr. Anderson Williams was named president of the Association. In addition, Mr. Monroe Bowie gave $50 for a cornerstone for the new building and Mr. J. R. Calahan had the honor of placing the cornerstone at the building site.[4]

When the school opened, Professor J. W. Murry served as the first principal in 1929, and five teachers, each of whom taught more than one grade, taught at the school. Three of the teachers were Mrs. Neva Williams, Mrs. Lizzie Mills, and Mrs. Ruth Cox.[5] By the early 1930s, a Vocational Shop Building was built at the campus to provide more educational opportunities for the students. As with the original building, the Vocational Shop Building was partially funded by the Rosenwald Fund. Application 5-K of the Fund’s 1931-1932 budget year was for the building, and the Rosenwald Fund gave a grant of $600 towards the building’s construction. The rest of the building’s $2,450 cost came from the local community ($100) and from public funds ($1,750).[6]

The Lafayette School continued to grow during the 1930s, and by 1939 it offered grades 1-11 rather than only grades 1-8. Grade 12 was added to the curriculum in 1947 when Mr. William Ruffin became the new principal. Five students graduated that year and they were Bertha Thomas, Mary B. Tate, O. H. Davis, Moses Hutton, and Ralph Johnson. Mrs. Imogene Lowery and the 1949 graduating class wrote the school’s alma mater, and by that time the school’s motto was “Soar like an eagle.”[7]

As the 1950s began, it started a period of redevelopment and expansion at the Lafayette School campus. In 1954-1955, a new high school was built, and the school’s curriculum and activities were expanded as well. Additions to the curriculum and activities included FHA, Physical Education, Business Administration, Social Studies, and Science, and football was added to the school’s athletic events.

In addition to the construction of the new high school in 1954-1955, a new gymnasium was built in 1950-1951. The gymnasium featured a brick-veneered masonry front section with a metal Butler Building gymnasium space behind. The use of a Butler Building for the gymnasium made sense due to the fact that their buildings “provided more usable interior space, looked better, used less steel, and could be fabricated and erected faster and with fewer people.” [8]

The origins of Butler Buildings date back to the early twentieth century when Emanuel Norquist met Charles Butler in Clay Center, Kansas. Norquist had developed a steel stock tank that both men believed had a lot of market potential. With assistance from Charles’ brother, Newton Butler, the Butler Manufacturing Company was founded in 1901. Just a few years later, in 1909, Norquist needed a garage to protect the Metz automobile that he was assembling and his brother, Victor, designed a steel framework that was covered with galvanized-steel culvert sheets. The first official Butler Building was sold in 1910.[9]

Shortly after the Norquists built their garage, they introduced a two-car version, which was instantly popular with the public. The company continued to grow and achieved great notoriety when, in the late 1930s as part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture grain bin project, the company “mass-produced 14,500 steel bins in 59 days, plus another 6,000 bins in just 15 days.” By 1940, the Butler Manufacturing Company had developed a complete line of buildings with rigid steel frames. Furthermore, through work with R. Buckminster Fuller during the World War II-years in developing movable housing for military troops and their families, “Butler Manufacturing Company gained the confidence to push the rigid frame design to the limit, launching pre-engineered building systems into worldwide acceptance and favor.”[10]

The gymnasium remained in use at the school campus until the school closed as a result of desegregation, which was required by law to happen by 1970. Steve Holcombe was the first African-American student to attend nearby Fairview School (located approximately 1.25 miles northwest of the Lafayette School campus), and Mrs. Bertha Thomas Kennedy was the first African-American teacher at Fairview, and she later became the first African-American principal of Fairview Middle School. Mr. Samuel D. Lawson served as Lafayette’s last principal before the school closed at the end of the 1968-1969 term.[11]

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROPERTY

From the time of its completion in the early 1950s until 1969 when Lafayette School was desegregated, the Lafayette School and its gymnasium was the center of the area's educational system. The fact that educational opportunities for African Americans at that time were limited meant that the Lafayette School was where African-American students had to go to get an education in the Camden area. The importance of the Lafayette School Gymnasium was not just limited to the students who attended the school, but their families as well. In addition, the Lafayette School Gymnasium was likely not only a significant part of African-American life when it came to education, but it was also likely an important aspect of the community's social life. As with churches, schools were often an important part of the community not just during the week, but on the weekends as well. Even today, although not regularly used, the building is an important part of the community and a reminder of the good memories that the former students had at the campus. As a result, the Lafayette School Gymnasium is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A with local significance for its associations with African-American education in the Camden area and Ouachita County. Although the changes to the interior of the building preclude its listing on the National Register, the building still reflects what makes it significant and it can be listed on the Arkansas Register.