08/01/2026
**It's getting a makeover!**
We know that this might be a bit shocking… but the appearance of the Museum’s little red schoolhouse is going to change. Let us start by stating that the Museum’s goal is, as always, to be responsible custodians of its artifacts. This means that the Museum staff not only protect the artifacts for future generations, but we also seek to interpret them as accurately as possible (based on current, available research). So, while the schoolhouse won’t look the same, we sincerely hope that the residents and guests of our community understand and appreciate the Museum's desire to accurately represent Aiken County's history.
With that being said... let's dive into the history of the building:
The Museum's little red schoolhouse was originally built around 1897 as a one-room school for White children in the in the China Springs community of Aiken County. After a few years, it was moved from China Springs to the Ball Town community (a few miles down the road along Highway 19) where it served as a school for the Black children of that area, and it was later used as the Ball Town Community Center. By the 1970s, it sat abandoned in a wooded area on private land where it was spotted by Arthur Courtney, one of the museum's founders. The land’s owner, Pauline Guerin Hermann of Sandersville, Georgia, donated the school to the museum in 1975.
As for its appearance....
Despite extensive research, we do not know what the original roofing material was made of. In a 1970s interview, Mae Wise Courtney Ready, who attended the school in 1905, recalled, "Our school didn’t have a fireplace or mantelpiece or glass windows. There were two rows of single desks, and a stove was in the middle of the room, with the teacher sitting behind it.” She didn’t mention what the roof was made of.
The earliest known photo of the building is from the 1970s and it shows a dilapidated wooden building with a tin roof (as seen in the photograph below). When the building was donated to the Museum in 1975, it was renovated by students at the Aiken County Vocational Center. It was at that point in 1975 that a belfry, porch stoop, and cedar shake roof was added to the building.
With approval from the City of Aiken's Design Review Board and the Aiken County Historical Commission along with financial support from the Watson-Brown Foundation and the Friends of the ACHM, the schoolhouse building will soon return to its standing-seam metal roof appearance. And, yes, this is only the first phase of a multi-year effort to restore the building to a more historically accurate appearance. Again, we at the Museum hope that our efforts can be understood as an endeavor to display history in a responsible way.
