Bell Street School

Front inscription

This school, built in 1950, was the third African-American school on Bell Street. Friendship School, founded in 1883 by nearby Friendship A.M.E. Church, was a combined elementary and high school. The frame school was replaced in 1926 by a brick school, named Bell Street School, with students in grades 1-11 until grade 12 was added in 1948-49. In 1937 it became the first black high school in Laurens County to be fully accredited by the state.

Martha Dendy School

Bell Street School burned in 1949, and this school opened in 1950. It became Bell Street Elementary in 1956 when a new high school was built. In 1960 it was renamed Martha Dendy Elementary School in memory of principal David Dendy’s mother. It became a junior high school when county schools desegregated in 1970, then a middle school in 1972, and a 6th grade center in 1997. The school closed in 2008.