2361 Joe Frank Harris Parkway | Cassville, Georgia

The Noble Hill School is located in Cassville, a northwest Georgia community. This wooden building was the first Rosenwald “Community School Plan” building constructed in Bartow County. Noble Hill was built through partnerships, as African Americans, whites, the Bartow County Board of Education and the Rosenwald Fund contributed financial and human capital to provide an elementary school education to local black students. When Noble Hill opened in 1924 African Americans contributed 47% of the building costs, and 33% was provided through the Rosenwald Fund.

At Noble Hill, students sat at wooden desks, had an industrial training room, two cloakrooms, and separate vestibules. Wood stoves provided heat in the winter, and there were no indoor bathrooms. The curriculum offered classes from grades 1-7. In 1955, the county consolidated Noble Hill and all African American schools to form the Bartow Elementary School, and Noble Hill closed, standing vacant for over 25 years.

Dr. Susie Wheeler was an early graduate of the Noble Hill School. While in school she was impressed by her teachers that she would later to aspire to become an educator. Eventually she returned to Bartow County as a teacher, Jeanes supervisor, and curriculum director. In 1983, Dr. Wheeler worked with her sister-in-law, Bertha Wheeler, to donate the school and land to the trustee board.

With this act Dr. Wheeler began a 5 year effort to achieve her dream of preserving Noble Hill and reopening it as an African American heritage museum. The trustee board that Dr. Wheeler recruited included Georgia Supreme Court Justice Robert Benham, a native of Bartow County, who successfully saved the school by raising over $200,000 in donations, including a planning grant from the National Trust. Noble Hill was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 2, 1987.

Today, the Noble Hill-Wheeler Memorial Center operates as a cultural heritage museum. The Center is open Tuesday – Saturday from 9am-4pm. For more information, call (770) 382-3392/ www.noblehillwheeler.org.