This former school in the Pine Hill community near Neeses served students as the Pine Hill Graded School from 1926 until area schools consolidated in 1950. After the school’s closure, the building became the Pine Hill Community Center and hosted many events such as plays and musicals. It functioned as a voting precinct into the twenty-first century. Home to several clubs and service organizations, it was also the venue for Pine Hill’s popular Bluegrass Jamboree – featuring the Dixie Dewdrops – until the building was shuttered in 2005.
Sadly, the rousing music that emitted from the former school’s auditorium was silenced when the early-twentieth century building was deemed too dilapidated to be safely used nearly 80 years after it was built. Area residents immediately began efforts to save the old school, hoping to raise funds to replace the roof and eventually repair and restore the rest of the building. However, today the former school stands vacant, leaving Pine Hill in search of a new place to celebrate both the milestones and mundane events of everyday life.
Pictured below is a scoreboard from Pine Hill School’s operational days. It still looms over the rural road where the building stands, though no cheers for the home team can be heard in this Orangeburg County farming community. Still, memories of it as a school and center of local festivities linger in the minds of those in Pine Hill. Unfortunately, the Pine Hill School was demolished in 2016.
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I was contacted by Chief Michelle Mitchum of the Pine Hill Indian Tribe in Orangeburg, who provided some additional history about this school. It served members of the Pine Hill and Beaver Creek Indian Tribes. She has two school year books from her time as a student. She is working to have the site listed by the National Historic Register to receive a marker.
That is wonderful news, and it is great to hear about its expanded history! Does she happen to know the years it served as a school for the Pine Hill and Beaver Creek Indian tribes? We are elated to hear a marker is in the works as well – thanks for the update.