The former Plymouth Elementary School, which served Black students in the Plymouth community during segregation, has been proposed for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. 

The Florida National Register Review Board is scheduled to consider the Plymouth Elementary School nomination at its 1:30 p.m. Aug. 12 meeting, according to a draft agenda. The meeting will be held at the R.A. Gray Building in Tallahassee with a virtual attendance option. 

The historic school is located at 3593 Hogshead Road in the Plymouth community northwest of Apopka. 

A 2023 heritage assessment by the Middle Tennessee State University Center for Historic Preservation found that the building housed Plymouth’s all-Black elementary school from about 1925 until Orange County schools were desegregated around 1966. During that period, it was the only place where Black children in Plymouth could receive an elementary education.  

The existing building was constructed in two phases, around 1925 and 1939, as enrollment grew. Local officials, community members and historians believe it is the oldest surviving frame school building in Orange County, according to the assessment.  

The school historically stood between Shiloh Missionary Baptist and St. James AME churches, institutions that researchers believed worked with the school to support Plymouth’s Black community during the Jim Crow era. 

The original one-room school served students in grades one through eight. As enrollment increased, some children attended in the morning while others attended in the afternoon because the building could not accommodate all the students at once.  

Orange County closed Plymouth Elementary in 1966. Community residents later worked to acquire the property from the school board and convert the former school into a community center. The school board agreed in 1968 to sell the property to the Plymouth Civic Association for $1,550.  

The building now serves as the headquarters of Plymouth Community Improvement Inc., a neighborhood organization that includes community members and Plymouth Elementary alumni.  

The 2023 assessment found the building to be in generally good condition and said its historical associations with the Civil Rights Movement made it potentially eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.