Following the close of the Civil War in 1865, Armstead Barker brought his family to this area, and other African American families followed, creating the settlement known as Gum Creek. By the mid-1880s, African American children in the area attended Gum Creek School, a one-room frame building that offered classes through the eighth grade. Early teachers included P.H. Eddings, S.H. Wilhite, and J.M. Donnell, and J.T. Dunnington, Sam Frank, W.H. Barker, and C.S. Sharp served as trustees. As in many rural schools, students attended from October through March so they could work in the fields during planting and harvesting seasons. The school was part of County District Two, and when area white schools combined to form the Baxter School, Gum Creek was sometimes also called Baxter Colored School. In 1902, J.I. Richardson bought land in this vicinity that included the school location. Wade's Chapel A.M.E. Church also used the building, and in 1920, when Richardson's widow Nannie sold the property to school district trustees, the deed required that it continue to be used for both school and church purposes. Following the 1938-39 school term, Gum Creek School closed, and students transferred to Blackshear Public School and Fisher High School in Athens. The school district then sold the property to Wade's Chapel Methodist Church, Dunnington heirs later bought it, and the building burned in 1942. The history of Gum Creek School reflects early efforts to educate the area's African American youth, as parents and educators sought education as a means to true freedom in the decades between Emancipation and integration.