Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 03/19/2009
NRHP Listing Date 06/11/2009
NRHP Reference Number 09000416
The Shady Grove School was completed in 1925 using money from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, which sought to provide better educational facilities for African Americans, and relying heavily on the labor and support of the local African American community. The one-room, one-teacher school housed grades 1-7 for more than 35 years, providing educational opportunities for several generations of Louisa’s closeknit black community. Shady Grove School is well preserved; the one-story frame building stands on its original site and retains much of its original fabric with very little alteration. While traffic on the nearby roads has increased, the school remains in a quiet, rural setting, as it was historically. According to the construction records available on Rosenwald Schools at Fisk University, Shady Grove was one of two Rosenwald schools built in the county. It is a significant example of the impact of Virginia’s “separate but equal” education policy and the resulting counterattack mounted by the Rosenwald Fund and local black citizens.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: June 14, 2021
