History of Ebbs Chapel School

History of the Ebbs Chapel School

    The building housing today’s Ebbs Chapel Community Center was in many ways forged in the struggles of the Great Depression. In 1937, the original Ebbs Chapel School (built in 1925-26) was lost to fire. Needing to continue educating children but constrained by the nationwide fiscal crisis, the Madison County Board of Education rapidly constructed a new but rather shoddy building which its students quickly dubbed “the sheep shed.” The “sheep shed” burned to the ground only a year later, with arson suspected but never investigated.

    Faced again with the obligation to rebuild, the Board was rescued by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal WPA (Works Progress Administration). One of the alphabet agencies that operated within that famous New Deal program was the National Youth Administration. The NYA was formed in 1935 to provide work and training for the young – between ages 16 and 25 – facing the desperate search for gainful employment in the devastated economy. One NYA program was dedicated to building schools.

    The Board’s 1938 request for the NYA to rebuild the burned school paralleled other Madison County school projects approved for WPA funding. Like the others, the building was to be built from local stone, in nearly all instances field stone released from rocky soil and gathered around the edges of cleared farm fields in Madison County. Thus, the funds to purchase the farmers' stone were yet another stimulant for the depressed local economy. The construction of the building would begin with footings of this stone, six feet deep and six feet thick, up to ground level. On top of this, would be three feet thick stone foundations up to the level of the building floor. Then 18 inch thick stone walls would frame the exterior of the school.

    Exercising their power to select the project's manager, the Board sought a resident of their county with requisite skills. But the only applicant from Madison refused the job at the salary offered. On June 23, 1940, Guy Rhodes, the Superintendent of Madison County Schools, announced that Harley Crisp, NYA project foreman in nearby Swain County, would lead the Ebbs Chapel project. Under Crisp’s guidance, young laborers – including many from Upper Laurel – learned the skills of construction as they began work on the building we enjoy today.

    Construction continued through 1941, beyond the attack on Pearl Harbor in December of that year. Finally, on March 30, 1942, the project was sufficiently finished for the displaced students to move into their new school. When final touches were concluded six weeks later, Ebbs Chapel was one of the final projects completed before the NYA was diverted from educational projects to support the war effort.

    The new building was the most substantial school ever constructed in the Upper Laurel community. One unconfirmed story claimed it to be the first in Madison County with indoor toilets. An extension of the wing on the west side of the building was added in 1956. For the 32 years after the new school was occupied in 1942, the building's classrooms provided a stable educational environment for generations of Upper Laurel students. Although the number of teachers and number of students varied over the years, the students of Upper Laurel attended first through seventh grade in the building we see today. Those who then chose to continue their schooling transferred to Mars Hill High School to complete their Madison County education.

    When opened in 1925, Ebbs Chapel School was a product of consolidation that brought students to a new, larger, and more distant building. That opening did not bring an end to consolidation. During subsequent decades, older students were displaced to Mars Hill High School and then in the fall of 1974 to the consolidated Madison County High School. That last consolidation opened space in what then became Mars Hill Elementary School which absorbed the remaining Ebbs Chapel students. In the spring of 1974, Ebbs Chapel’s final days as a school ended.

    With several former school buildings in its inventory as a result of consolidation, the Madison County Board of Education recognized that some could become assets to their neighbors as community centers. Ebbs Chapel was one of these. Community activity at Ebbs Chapel began almost immediately. In September the Madison County Bluegrass Festival was hosted on the school grounds. Several bands and the Bailey Mountain Cloggers performed. The Upper Laurel Bicentennial Committee (organized to plan local observances of the American Bicentennial celebration in 1976) helped to organize the event and raised funds for its activities. One of the events to celebrate that noteworthy anniversary was a covered wagon train that traversed the county and one of its stops was the Ebbs Chapel grounds. The community’s interest in having a Center to celebrate its character was evident.

    Accomplishing the full promise of that change in the building’s contributions to the community was not immediate however. The availability of the old building to the community through the actions of the Madison County Board of Education and its current owners, the government of Madison County, was generous, but repurposing an aging school needing renovation was a responsibility that rested beyond their bequest, falling upon the voluntary efforts and financial resources of the community itself.

    Since that time, through the voluntary labor of many citizens of Upper Laurel, and through the gifts and grants of various philanthropies supplemented by the generosity of residents and local businesses, the spaces that once housed students now bring entertainment, and serve all the residents of Upper Laurel in many ways. Now, nearly a half century since its classrooms fell silent, their old school is where many of those students are provided services that make their life easier and happier in their senior years. And, in the building and on its grounds, the community's many generations come together to enjoy each other and their beautiful mountains on wonderful days of festivity.

Ebbs Chapel Community Center

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Ebbs Chapel Community Center
281 Laurel Valley Rd.
Mars Hill NC 28754

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Ebbs Chapel Community Center