East Side School

East Side School opened in 1954 on a 72-acre former dairy farm, much of which was later included in Lake Paul Wallace. Initially an elementary school, it expanded to grades 1-12 in 1956 when it replaced a facility on King Street as Bennettsville’s Black high school, with more than 1,000 students attending that year. The school was funded by the S.C. equalization program, a state effort to preserve segregation by upgrading African American schools. In addition to classrooms, the original campus included a gymnasium, auditorium, library, labs, a shop, and a former farmhouse that became the family home of Floyd B. Walker, Sr. and Tomasena Gupple Walker, the school’s first principal and first librarian. Columbia architects Lyles, Bissett, Carlisle and Wolff designed the school, and a football field was later added to the northeast. During integration in 1969, it became a junior high school and later an elementary school.

Bennettsville, South Carolina · United States