Holt School

I'd love to hear any info anyone can share on this building -- location, history, dates, relation to the "other" Holt School, etc.

So would I, as I attended Holt Elementary in the 5th and 6th grades.

My memory is fuzzy, but it seems that the original Holt School was located off North Roxboro Road somwhere between where Mt. Sylvan Mehodist Church now stands and the intersection of Mason Road and Roxboro Road. Mt. Sylvan stood originally on the opposite side of Roxboro Road (next to the church graveyard). If I get a chance to go out that way, I think I could find the old location of the School.

So, the Mt Sylvan that's on the west side of Roxboro Rd is not the original? I always wondered why the graveyard was across the street, but figured it had to do with available land. And that would mean this Holt School was further out of town than the present Holt School.

Does anyone know who the school was named after or when this building was torn down?

I Googled Wells and Brinkley School maps Durham, N.C. I found a 1920 map of Durham city and county schools. It has both white and "colored" schools listed.

Having both white and colored schools in the 1920s doesn't surprise me. Durham County schools weren't fully desegregated until the 1968-69 school year. I was in second grade, and remember it well. The way some adults acted, you'd have thought it was the end of the world instead of a long-overdue step forward.

That step forward was tough on everyone, including the blacks. They didn't want to be bused to those schools any more than whites wanted them there. While I was in Carrington, and then 10th grade in Northern, we had some disruptive issues, but back then, principals had control of the situations. I'm still not convinced that anything forced upon the people is the best way to "move forward".

I think the present-day location of Holt School has been there since at least 1960. it started off as a Grade 1 thru 8, with grades 9 thru 12 going to Northern High. When Carrington was built and opened in 1965-66, Holt went to serving students in Grades 1 thru 6. I was assigned to begin first grade at Holt in Miss Joyce Shaw's class in September 1969, but with the advent of integration four months later, I was sent over to Little River instead to complete 1st grade.