Lott-Canada School
a.k.a. Lott--Canada High School; Beeville Rosenwald School
900 W Corpus Christi St, Beeville, TXThe Lott-Canada School in Beeville, Bee County, Texas was built between 1931 and 1932 with funds from the Julius Rosenwald School Building Program, established in 1917 for the advancement of African-American education in the rural South. The building serves as a physical reminder of this philanthropic program and is the sole extant property directly linked to the history of African-American education in the community, representing an era when legally-mandated separate but rarely equal--accommodations for black students were the norm throughout the southern United States. The building is a good example of a Rosenwald school modeled on Community School Plan #4A and is it nominated to the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance under Criterion A, in the areas of Education and Ethnic Heritage-African-American, under the context Historic and Architectural Resources Associated with the Rosenwald School Building Program (MPS, 1998). The period of significance extends to 1964 when Bee County public schools became fully integrated; Criteria Consideration G, for properties that have achieved significance within the last fifty years, therefore applies, as the building continued to function as a segregated public school. The building is exceptionally significant as a rare physical reminder of segregated African-American education in Bee County, Texas.
Local significance of the building:Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 2010.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.