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Name: Mount Alto School
Date: undated
Image Number: Mount Alto School, K. Edward Lay, UVA Library
Comments: The original Mount Alto school was a one-room schoolhouse, which was built by and for African Americans in 1890
for $700. Nineteen students attended this school when the schoolhouse was completed. Around 1920, this Mount Alto school building
was built possibly using materials taken from the original schoolhouse. This school building was sited immediately adjacent to Mt. Alto
Road at 4223 Mt. Alto Rd, Esmont, VA, and was in operation teaching African Americans at least through the 1930's.
The Mount Alto school house, built around 1920 on Mt. Alto Road, was a one-story structure with a three bay facade, a central double-leaf
entry, and a front-gabled roof. The gabled facade contained the main entrance with a side entry on the elevation facing Mount Alto Road.
This building contained one central-interior brick chimney, was pierced with six-over-six wood windows, and was clad with weatherboard siding.
Elsie Armstead taught at Mount Alto School in 1931-32, and Ethel L. Mitchell taught there in the late 1930's. Rebecca Monroe Jordan, an
Esmont resident who obtained her GED at age 70, also taught at the school.
Scottsville Museum wishes to thank Maxwell Johnson for his research and photographs on this Esmont
community school!
References:
1) David Pinckney Powers Papers, 1888-1938, Accession #9377-a, 9377-b, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
2) Hallock, Jennifer; Gardiner Hallock & Kristie Baynard National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Southern Albemarle
Rural Historic District. February 2007.
3) Samuel Baker Woods Papers, 1894-1937, Accession #4648-a, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
4) Photograph of Mount Alto School by K. Edward Lay; University of Virginia Library. Also published in The Architecture
of Jefferson Country, Charlottesville, and Albemarle County, Virginia, 2000.
Copyright © 2018 by Scottsville Museum
Image Located On: Mount Alto School, K. Edward Lay, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, VA
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