Wise County’s Flat Gap High School building, which no longer functions as an educational facility, is an important vestige of the educational and social history of the Flat Gap community and the architectural history of the region. The school building was designed in a classically derived but rustic architectural style and constructed in 1935-36, making it among the earliest purpose-built high schools in the county. The new school replaced a prior Flat Gap high school, located about two miles from the new school’s site, that had been a makeshift facility consisting of three one-room buildings used for classrooms. Beyond its educational service, the newer school, as the only public building in the area, provided a social and civic center to the Flat Gap community for several generations. Beginning in 1945, high school students were sent ten miles distant to Pound and the Flat Gap building thereafter served elementary students, grades 1-7, until it closed as a school in 1961.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia