When Taliaferro County was formed in 1825 from Wilkes, Hancock, Greene, Oglethorpe, and Warren, it inherited the Whites, plantations, enslaved people, and Free Backs from those counties. The area now known as Springfield was originally part of Militia District 606.
After the Civil War, African American children of Springfield Community had no pubic school. Eventually, the community established a one-room school in the lower level of a straight-up two-story building known as the Society Hall. A removable partition separated the two teachers.
In 1935, the citizens of the Springfield District of Taliaferro County raised funds and purchased 4 acres of land from a community member. They cut the logs from their own properties. They used their own time, money, and resources to build a large and beautiful community school. The classes were from pre-primer to 11th grade.
Using the design from a large school in Hancock County, the finished product resembles the Rosenwald five-teacher community school plan.
The first classes were held in 1937. The log Cabin school was used as a community school until the Taliaferro County School System consolidated all schools in 1955. Children were moved to segregated schools run by the county. The building was used as a community center.
Formed as a 501c3 in 1993, the organization headed by Calvin Turner, a local leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), started the groundwork for restoring the log cabin with the Historic Structure Report until he died in 2007.
The nonprofit reorganized on October 27, 2016, adding new members and utilizing new tactics such as church donations to applying for grants and various crowd-funding activities. It updated its policy and added an investment policy. We joined the National Trust of Historic Preservation and solicited the help of Ethos and Landmark Preservation along with Joe Smith of Arcollab, AIA. The organization has created the documentation to put numbers to the project and write for more extensive grants.