The Burnt Place

Soon after arriving in Tuskegee in 1881, Booker T. Washington purchased an abandoned 100-acre plantation called The Burnt Place, named because the main house had burned during the Civil War. He bought the property for $500, making his first payment with $250 borrowed from the personal savings of J. F. B. Marshall, treasurer of Hampton Institute, the Virginia school for blacks that Washington had attended. At that time a cabin formerly used as the dining room, an old kitchen, a stable, and an old hen-house still stood there, and within a few weeks all of these structures were in use. The Burnt Place became the heart of Tuskegee Institute after Washington moved the school there from temporary quarters in an abandoned church and shanty in the town of Tuskegee. General Samuel C. Armstrong, founder of Hampton Institute, had recommended Washington as the first principal, or president, of the Tuskegee Normal School for Colored Teachers, later known as Tuskegee Institute.

Tuskegee, Alabama · United States