Founded in 1878 as a two-room school and named for state senator Whitmell P. Tunstall, Whitmell became the first rural consolidated school in Pittsylvania County in 1918 as the Whitmell Farm-Life School. Sarah Archie Swanson Beverley, who taught there and served as principal between 1916 and 1951, believed that the country school must be the center of community life. Under her leadership, Whitmell School achieved that goal as a model progressive school. In 1920, it hosted the national Conference on Rural Education and Country Life, and in 1923 it was the site of the Virginia Rural Life Conference, addressed by Gov. E. Lee Trinkle and U.S. Sen. Carter Glass.