Marlboro County Training School
National Register Listing
Street Address:
612 King Street, Bennettsville, SC (Marlboro County)
Alternate Name:
Bennettsville High School (Colored), Bennettsville Graded School, Marlboro County Training and High School, Marlboro Elementary School, Marlboro School Community Center
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817735011
Description and Narrative:
The Marlboro County Training School is significant for its use as Bennettsville’s only African American public school from 1928 to 1954, and its subsequent service as one of only two such schools from 1954 to 1971. Designed in the Colonial Revival style by local architect Henry Dudley Harrall, the school building was constructed in 1928 and first opened in 1929 as Bennettsville High School for African Americans, a fourteen-room facility that served all of the town’s high school- and elementary-age Black students. By 1935, the building was home to the Marlboro County Training School, an institution that previously operated for several years in the nearby town of McColl before moving to the King Street campus. New additions in c. 1935 and 1941 accommodated growing enrollment. As the Marlboro County Training School, it continued to serve as the only site of Black elementary and secondary education in Bennettsville until the 1954-56 construction of East Side School through the state equalization program. East Side became the city’s sole Black high school in 1956, after which this building continued to serve local African Americans as Marlboro Elementary School. It continued to be one of just two local Black elementary schools until 1971, when it was the last public school in Marlboro County to be desegregated. Listed in the National Register April 28, 2025.
Period of Significance:
1928 – 1971
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Education;Ethnic Heritage: Black
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
April 28 2025
