Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute

Snow Hill Normal and Industrial Institute. , Snow Hill Institute was founded in 1893 by William James Edwards, a graduate of historic Tuskegee Institute established by Booker T. Washington in 1881., Snow Hill’s lineage extends back to Hampton Institute where Washington and many of Snow Hill’s faculty graduated., The founding of Snow Hill Institute was greatly facilitated by the planter R. O. Simpson who gave Snow Hill Institute its first 100 acres of land in increments of seven (7), thirty-three (33), and sixty (60) acres. He also became the first chairman of the school’s Board of Trustees., Edwards was Snow Hill Institute’s Principal from 1893 until 1925 when he resigned because of ill health. This period is generally considered Snow Hill Institute’s Golden Age when it stood in the forefront of the movement to improve rural education for African Americans in Alabama’s Black Belt., Snow Hill Institute served as an educational institution until 1972 when it was forced to close due to integration. Harry Sims, Ligon Wilson, Joseph Davis, Major Lightfoot and Zack Z. Brown also served as principals in the school’s eighty-year history., Snow Hill Institute was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior on February 24, 1995.