Brownwood and Centennial, located close to one another on Old Sandtown Road in Morgan County, may have been one and the same community in their early years along a road that originally developed as a stagecoach route between Augusta and Sandtown, present-day Newborn, with a house in the area serving as an inn and stagecoach stop. Later, the Brown family acquired substantial acreage and helped develop improvements including Brown's Mill, Brownwood Church, and the Brownwood School, which was eventually rebuilt and became known as Brobstom's School. Saint Paul's, a small Episcopal church, was located here, and other civic institutions served the African American community, including Thankful Church and School and Moseley's Chapel and School. In the late 19th century, Centennial began to distinguish itself from Brownwood when land was donated for Centennial Church and cemetery and Centennial Academy, and members of a community that had organized itself earlier constructed a church building and later a school around 1880, giving Centennial an identity of its own.