Piney Pond School photograph

Access and use

Location of collection:
University of Virginia, Special Collections Dept.
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400110
160 McCormick Rd
Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4110
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Brenda Gunn
Phone: (434) 924-1037
Phone: (434) 243-1776
Fax: (434) 924-4968
Restrictions:

This collection is minimally processed and open for research.

Preferred citation:

MSS 16508, Piney Pond School photograph, Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.

Summary

Extent:
0.03 Cubic Feet 1 letter sized folder
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

MSS 16508, Piney Pond School photograph, Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection contains a gelatin silver photograph of about fifty Black students, parents, and faculty in front of a rustic schoolhouse. About two-thirds of the participants are students with the rest either faculty or parents. Caption on label reads: "La Crosse, Va. Piney Pond School April 3, 1914."

Biographical / historical:

Piney Pond town or La Crosse, Va.is a town in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. Its name is derived from the fact that it was a place where railroads once crossed, and there is still a caboose in the center of the town. La Crosse is adjacent to the neighboring town South Hill. It was incorporated in 1901, but existed many years before.

Before 1890, La Crosse was known as Piney Pond. The La Crosse Hotel and O.H.P. Tanner House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. La Crosse was a stop on the Atlantic and Danville Railway. The Virginia General Assembly chartered the People's Warehouse Company in 1902 in La Crosse. The company was formed for selling tobacco. The village of Piney Pond a marshy plot was a marshy plot with pines, the post office designated the area as La Crosse in 1890 on the suggestion of the surveyor's French wife because of the two railroad trains that crisscrossed in the middle of the village. While the railroads were removed in the 1990s, the town is still a true "Crossroads Town" since US Route 58 and Interstate 85 cross a tenth of a mile to the west of the town and will once again have a train intersecting the middle of town when the new Southeast Hi-Speed Railroad Corridor is constructed beginning in the next few years. Furthermore, La Crosse represents a "Crossroads" in history by embracing its part of the American small town culture by maintaining it characteristics of a quaint small community where everyone is friendly and knows your name while also embracing the future by being the home address of numerous national/regional industries and businesses. In the year 2000 tThe racial makeup of the town was 54.85% White, 43.20% African American, 0.32% Native American, 0.16% Asian, 0.49% from other races, and 0.97% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.91%. Source: http://www.townoflacrosse.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Crosse,_Virginia

Acquisition information:
This collection was a purchase from Between the Covers by the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia Library on April 29, 2021.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard