Former One-Room Schoolhouse for African American Children Added to National Register of Historic Places

Earlier this month, the National Park Service listed the Pleasant Ridge School, a one-room schoolhouse that served African American students from about 1918 to 1956, in the National Register of Historic Places.  

The Pleasant Ridge School Historic District is located on Princess Anne Road between Pleasant Ridge Road and Gum Bridge Road south of Pungo. It includes the Asbury Christian Fellowship Church and the church cemetery, which are contributing resources in the district, along with the school. 

Believed to be the lone remaining one-room schoolhouse in Virginia Beach, the building that became Pleasant Ridge was originally constructed around 1886 as the larger room of a two-room schoolhouse for white students at Charity, a crossroads community south of Pleasant Ridge. This school was no longer in use around 1918 when the original one-room school for African American students at Pleasant Ridge was destroyed by a fire of unknown origin. The larger room of the Charity school was moved to the Pleasant Ridge site to replace the earlier building. 

Due to its small size, the Pleasant Ridge School housed two sessions daily.  The morning session was for the lower grades, and the afternoon session was for older students up to seventh grade.  

The building ceased to be used as a school in 1956 with the opening of Seaboard Elementary School, which consolidated several small schools for African American children. The other consolidated elementary schools that served African American students in Princess Anne County were Seatack (1952) and Bettie F. Williams (1961). Virginia Beach first began integrating public schools in 1962. 

Listing in the National Register of Historic Places is honorary and does not impose restrictions or provide protection for properties located in historic districts. The Pleasant Ridge School Historic District nomination was sponsored by the Virginia Beach Historic Preservation Commission.  

The school was previously listed in the Virginia Landmarks Register in June by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. 

For more information about the Historic Preservation Program or to inquire about the nomination process, visit VirginiaBeach.gov/HistoricPreservation or contact Historic Preservation Planner Mark Reed at MReed@vbgov.com or 757-385-8573.