SSU Partners With Community On Historic Restoration Project


 
 

Felicia Bell, Ph.D, assistant professor of history at Savannah State University (SSU), led the unveiling of a new arch and sign at LePageville Memorial Cemetery on Friday, October 17. Bell directed the project as part of a community engagement grant that originates within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS). Bell and her students researched the community’s history through archives and by asking local citizens who remember the village. Students then wrote the application to have the cemetery listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Robert Smith, dean of CLASS, is excited to “engage with the community, to select projects and to work with partners to restore a piece of history.” SSU is eager to continue undertaking projects like this in the future.

LePageville was built as a company town to support the building and running of the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway. About 500 people lived in the town, which had its own school, church and cemetery. In later years, some children attended Powell Hall School, which was once located on the SSU campus. “For some time,” Bell says, “It was a good place to grow up.” Over the decades, the buildings became dilapidated and were never brought up to modern standards. During the 1960s, during desegregation, the residents were moved into more modern public housing and eventually the town was razed.

Kenneth Rouse, current president of the LePageville Memorial Cemetery Committee, recalls his father and uncle’s memories of the place and he is determined that the site become an historical park, where people can “visit and see how people lived from the late 1800s into the 1960s. And to see how far LePageville has come.”

Bell hopes that once the site achieves national status they will be able to raise money for other projects like keeping the property clear, implementing the walkways and paths, paying for an archaeologist and identifying some of the gravesites.


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