Ahpeatone School

The small brick building sitting in front of the empty shell of a gym was built in 1931 as the Ahpeatone School. This housed students K through 12 until a grade school was built later on to separate high schoolers and smaller children. The Ahpeatone School Gymnasium project was approved by the Works Progress Administration in 1939.

Actual construction on the gym started in September of that year and was expected to cost roughly $18,000 with $5,000 being raised locally. A massive 70×121-foot concrete building would house the basketball court and be used for manual training and home economics classes. At one time this gym hosted a championship basketball team as well as many years of graduations.

“My daddy used to play on the men’s basketball team in the Ahpeatone Gym. We roller-skated on the stage in there while they practiced. It had these beautiful red velvet curtains trimmed in gold on the stage and an old backdrop picture of a man riding those odd bicycles of the ’20s or ’30s! I loved this old place” said Judy Gayle Woods Pollan.

In 1957 worry spread amongst the town that the school would be slated for closure and the students annexed to another nearby school. They had lost their state funding after failing to meet the new state law requirements regarding isolation. Unbeknownst to any patrons, a local officer measured the distance between Ahpeatone and its distance between other schools in the area, discovering that it fell just short of the twelve-mile radius rule for isolation funding.

The towns’ population was declining and at the time the government was cutting more funding to rural schools and pushing for consolidations. A mass meeting was called amongst the citizens of District 3 and those that attended gathered in the gym to discuss the future of schooling operations. After appeals and many conversations, the district finally agreed to transfer students to nearby Chattanooga, Walters, Big Pasture and Grandfield. Classes through 8th grade continued until 1963 when the school closed and became a memory.

Ahpeatone Baptist Church, which began in the 1940s, used the school’s study hall for Sunday Service.  After the schools’ closure, the church continued to meet in the old building while the gymnasium behind them continued to deteriorate. The church has continued for the last few decades in this building with no pastor but with two active Sunday School classes. The former school building has been the home to a variety of events through the years from weddings to funerals, revivals, baptisms,  family reunions, class reunions, 50th-anniversary celebrations, wedding showers, birthday parties, church dinners, and Christmas/Easter celebrations. A building that was and continues to be the center of a community.

Unfortunately, in August 2020, a nasty storm blew through the area and put a pretty bad hole in the roof of the little red brick building. ” Throughout the years we have patched and re-patched the roof, repaired the ceilings, repaired the windows, painted the walls, installed the pews, carpeted the sanctuary, installed bathrooms, and tried to preserve the building as best we could. This time, however, the cost of repair is more than a few people can meet. Working through six layers of old shingles, weak rafters and 90 years of use we have a challenge ahead of us trying to preserve the memories of Ahpeatone’s past, present, and future by keeping the church open” said Mandi Gammill who helps maintain the church with her husband David. A GoFundMe has been started in an attempt to help repair the roof.

GoFundMe – Repair Ahpeatone School

Gallery Below of Ahpeatone School

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