The Grand Bay Elementary School for Colored stood on land adjacent to this building after Peter Alba donated the parcel in 1919. Soon afterward, Black residents of Grand Bay, the Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, and the Julius Rosenwald School Building Fund pooled resources to construct a school for Black children, as required by segregation laws. The building had five large rooms, with three used as classrooms and two as living quarters for the three teachers, and it offered instruction from primer through seventh grade. In the middle 1940's, the building was moved to Irvington along with buildings from schools serving Black children in St. Elmo, Bayou la Batre, and Coden. The school closed in 1949 when the building was moved to the site of Dixon Elementary School. Rosenwald Schools have been recognized as historic places of national significance for their role in providing education to Black students in the segregated South.