Charlotte Museum of History opening historic Siloam School after restoration

Charlotte Museum of History, 3500 Shamrock Drive, Charlotte, North Carolina, is opening the historic Siloam School after eight years of restoration. The Siloam School is a one-room schoolhouse that was used to educate Black children between 1920 and 1947 in rural North Charlotte.

To mark the opening, the Museum is holding a celebration on Saturday, June 15, 2024, from 12 to 2 p.m.

Facebook event.

History of the Siloam School

The Siloam School was built in 1920 in the rural Mallard Creek area by members of the community. The one-room school served Black children, who were excluded from Mecklenburg County schools. The average daily attendance of the school ranged from 20 to 39 students.

The Rosenwald Fund was a program conceived of by Dr. Booker T. Washington, and financed by Julius Rosenwald (president of Sears, Roebuck and Co.) in 1917, with the goal of providing free, primary schools for Black children in the segregated rural South. The Siloam School is a Rosenwald-era school. It was built according to the Rosenwald designs, but it did not receive any money from the Rosenwald Fund.

By 1947 the school ceased operation and students moved to different schools in North Charlotte. In 1951, The Young family, with family members who attended and who worked for the school, purchased it and used it as a family home and then a garage until the 1980s. A developer purchased the property in the early 2000s and built an apartment complex, keeping the school building on the property.

The Charlotte Museum of History, along with many other community organizations, created the Save Siloam School Project in 2016, with the goal of stabilizing the structure, restoring it, moving it to the Museum grounds, and using it as a teaching resource.

This has been accomplished, and the school is now on the Museum grounds. Programming will teach about life for rural African American families in Mecklenburg County in the early 20th century.