City Directories and History: The Ashwood School Gymnasium and Auditorium was built in 1938 to serve Ashwood Plantation, the first and largest of the Resettlement 
Administration (RA) project tracts in South Carolina. It is significant for the role it has played in politics and government and the social history of the Lee County community, and architecturally as an excellent and remarkably intact example of Resettlement Administration Architecture in South Carolina. It is the most significant and intact manifestation of the Ashwood resettlement project remaining in what was once a vibrant
farming community. The Ashwood community was created by the New Deal resettlement program to convert defunct plantation or farm land into a self-sustaining community of independent farms with educational, agricultural, and commercial support facilities. The
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- Ashwood School Gymnasium & Auditorium – Bill Segars, Photographer
building served as the school and community gymnasium for athletics, dances, and community meetings and as an auditorium for dramatic performances and films, in a rural place in the time before television and mass media. The school itself is no longer extant. As a part of the ambitious Ashwood project, the gymnasium/auditorium served an important role in the Resettlement Administration and New Deal’s goals to improve the health and education of the poorer classes, especially that of Southern tenant farmers. The simplified Colonial Revival architecture reflects a style that was popular nationwide in the 1930s, especially in government-sponsored construction, but also the economic situation of the era and the rural Southern character of its surroundings. Listed in the National Register May 25, 2011
(Courtesy of South Carolina Department of Archives and History)
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R&R HISTORY LINK: the SC Encyclopedia – Ashwood Project
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