W.S. Harlan School

W.S. Harlan School. . , William Stewart Harlan was the manager of Jackson Lumber Company in Lockhart, established in the early twentieth century as a mill town during the booming demand for longleaf yellow pine. Marketed as Dixie Rift Flooring and Dixie Poles and Piling, the superior lumber produced at the Lockhart mill was used in the construction of New York’s Grand Central Station and other buildings of stature in Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana, and Washington, D.C. Jackson Lumber Company also produced creosoted wood blocks that were used for paving streets in cities like Atlanta and Pensacola. At its height, the company employed 1,000 people. Dwindling resources and wartime enlistments resulted in the mill’s closure in 1940. (Continued on other side). Reverse: (Continued on other side). Schooling began here in 1903, in a three-room structure serving seventy-five of the mill town’s children. The main grammar school building at this site was built in 1924. It was named in honor of W. S. Harlan, who had ensured its construction before his death a year earlier. The junior high building was added in 1939, part of the New Deal-era Federal Works Project. Both buildings were constructed with materials produced by Jackson Lumber Company and continue to serve students of the Lockhart area. The grammar school building is the oldest schoolhouse in Covington County still functioning as an active school.