In 1928, the School Board of the Town of Cape Charles in Northampton County, Virginia purchased the land on which the Cape Charles Rosenwald School now stands. Eastern Shore contractor C. F. Russell built the school in 1929. The school is significant as one of the thousands of schools constructed for African Americans in the rural south during the first part of the twentieth century with the support of philanthropist Julius Rosenwald and the Rosenwald Fund. In Virginia, 366 schools and 16 auxiliary buildings were constructed with assistance from the Rosenwald fund between 1917 and 1932, of which 126 remain. Four schools were built on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, of which three remain. The Cape Charles school was the only such building erected in Northampton County. Significant architecturally, the school follows a “four-teacher” standard plan developed by architect Samuel L. Smith, a director of the Rosenwald Fund, as adapted by the Virginia Department of Education, Division of School Buildings. Though not the first school for Black children in in Cape Charles, it marked a significant improvement in terms of physical plant. The school operated from 1929 to 1966 when the local schools were consolidated and eventually integrated. The building was later used as a seafood processing plant. It has been purchased by a nonprofit organization which is implementing a phased rehabilitation to put the building back in use to serve the community. For more information about the rehabilitation go here.
The building was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register in September 2023 and on the National Register in October 2023. Hanbury Preservation Consulting prepared the nomination which can be found here.