A Regal Sentinel: Raleigh’s Thompson School
On the eastern fringe of downtown Raleigh an imposing Jacobean manor stands sentinel over the surrounding neighborhood. I am referring, of course, to the former Thompson School on East Hargett St. Although the school itself closed with the merger of the city and county public school systems in 1976, the building still bears a prominence in the community today as Wake County’s family services Thompson Center.
In 1907 the Raleigh school board opened the Thompson School in the antebellum mansion then standing on the site. That building itself had long served as Miss Sophia Partridge’s “Select School for Young Ladies” from the mid-1840s through the end of the Civil War. Two other residences in the neighborhood also served as private schools during the ante bellum years. One of these was located in the Jordan Womble house, which still stands nearby. Miss Partridge was a prominent Raleigh citizen of the period. Following the war she was instrumental in the establishment of the Confederate Cemetery in Oakwood. She continued to reside in her Hargett St. home for many years after she closed her school. (A portion of the mansion grounds’s cut granite block retaining wall demarcating the edge of the property can still be seen today.)
In 1923 the Raleigh school board hired Atlanta architect C. Gadsen Sayre to design four modern school buildings. These were Wiley Elementary School on Saint Mary’s St., Washington High School for African-Americans on the southern extension of Fayetteville St., Hugh Morson High School near Moore Square, and Thompson Elementary School on Hargett St. All four buildings were designed in the then popular Jacobean style. Wiley and Washington still function as public schools; Thompson is now the county’s Thompson Center, which offers services to socially disadvantaged clients. Hugh Morson, by far the largest of the four, was demolished in 1966 and replaced by the Federal Building.
After many years of benign neglect, the county rehabilitated Thompson in 1986 for use as the community services center. The surrounding neighborhood is now part of the city’s Downtown East redevelopment plan and is currently in the early stages of a residential resurgence and renewal. http://www.newsobserver.com/news/wake/story/562298.html Although only a fragment of the original ante bellum Hargett St. neighborhood exists today, Thompson School still regally reigns over the its neighbors.
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09/18/2011
I attended Thompson Elementary in 1942. I was awarded a certificate as the student that read more school library books than any other student for that year. I wish I could remember the names of some of my class mates, but too much time has passed.
My step-father and I lived on Person Street at the Salvation Army residence, since he was with the Salvation Army and I remember a little
“snack shop” on the next street North of the school that was a popular lunch place for us, if your packed lunch was not edible and you had 15 cents to blow. The packed lunch was usually eaten on the way home that day and by that time you gotten hungry enough and then it became edible. If anyone attended school at Thompson during those days I was “Hubert” Thompson in those days, my middle name, sad to say,but thanks to the USAF I became William, my first name and your middle name is only an intial, thank goodness. Anyway, after all these years I would happy to hear from anyone that knew me.
Since I discovered you great site I have been a constat reader and thank you for the great service to Raleigh and your readers.