Fairmount Elementary School

Fairmount Elementary School. Fairmount Heights Industrial School, est. 1911 - 737 61st Avenue Fairmount Heights, MD. , Education for the children was an important concern for the community. In 1910, there were 100 children living in the community, but no school. The first school opened in 1909 in a frame house on 59th Avenue with Carrie Griffin as the first teacher. James F. Armstrong and Robert S. Nichols began in 1910 to work with School Commissioners Frederick Sasscer and Otway Zatzinger to express the need for the community to have a school building. While there were several Rosewall Schools in Prince George County, the Fairmount Heights Elementary School was not a Rosenwald School. The Rosenwald Schools were any of the schools built primarily for the education of African American children. Julius Rosenwald, a Jewish Clothier was part owner and later the president of Sears Roebuck and Company., The building that housed the original Fairmount Heights Elementary School is one of the largest of the historic buildings in Fairmount Heights and was a focal point in the community. In January 1911, a group of residents approached the Board of School Commissioners and requested that an elementary school be guilt in the community. The Board agreed; a building committee was appointed. A local Fairmount Heights Architect, William Sidney Pittman was chosen to submit a design for the school. The County appropriated $2,500 for construction. In April of 1911, the Board ordered that the school be erected in accordance with Pittman's plans and specifications. By September 1911, the Board purchased four unimproved lots at the corner of Chapel Avenue (now known as 61st Avenue) and Addison Road. The school, to be known as "Colored School" #1 in District 18, opened in 1912. James F. Armstrong was named Director of Manual Training. Robert S. Nichols was the chairman of the Committee that successfully brought the first school to Fairmount Heights. He was instrumental in bringing about the incorporation of Fairmount Heights. In 1935, he was elected the first Mayor and served two terms., By 1915, enrollment had increased to 160 pupils, with five teachers, four classrooms, three hallways, and a carpenter shop. With the development of the community and the increase of the local student population, the new school was soon overcrowded. In 1922, James Armstrong began to press the Board of Education for the construction of an addition to the school building. The one-story addition was completed in 1923. This building served as the public school for Fairmount Heights until 1934, when a new eight-room brick school was built at the corner of Addison and Sheriff Roads., Doswell Brooks was the Supervisor of Prince George's County Schools for Colored Students for 34 years. He attended Hampton Institute, Hampton Virginia to become a teacher. In 1934, he helped to start the first high school in Upper Marlboro for colored students. In 1934, the school was renamed Frederick Douglas High School after Frederick Douglas, an American social reformer and abolitionist born in Cardova, Maryland. Doswell Brooks helped to buy the first school bus for African American students. He served on the Fairmount Heights Town Council and was elected as the Mayor in 1955., Robert Ridgely Gray grew up in Lakeland (later College Park), Maryland. He was the first Principal of Fairmount Heights Elementary School. He attended Armstrong High School in Washington D.C. He started to work in Prince George's County in 1934 as principal of Fairmount Heights Elementary School. He left Fairmount Heights to serve in the United States Army from 1945-1946, and returned to continue serving as principal at the school until 1970. He served on the administrative board of his church Grace Methodist. The Robert S. Gray Elementary School in District Heights Maryland opened in August 2011 and was dedicated in his honor on April 20, 2012.