Laurel Hill School
This is the last site of Laurel Hill School, which served African American families mainly from the community of Alvin. It was founded by the 1910s, when around thirty students attended. Classes were conducted in a wooden one-room schoolhouse and at a local church before moving to this site by 1940. A pair of cypress trees flanked the school’s entrance off the road.
The Laurel Hill School built here was a larger frame facility, painted white with a tin roof. It enrolled 147 pupils in grades 1-6 in 1953-54. The next year, it was one of several Berkeley County schools to close amid consolidation. The building here was later repurposed as the Alvin Community Center. It burned in 1979, and the Center moved into a site across the road in 1986.
Where it stands. Santee River Rd. (S.C. Hwy. 45), 500 ft. N of Mill Race Rd., Alvin, Alvin