The Gretna Schoolhouse: A Florida Landmark Waiting for a New Chapter

Gretna Schoolhouse | Gadsden County, FL | c. early 1900s

On the edge of Gretna, Florida, a weathered wooden schoolhouse sits silent. Its clapboard walls once echoed with the voices of children, the sermons of preachers, the music of town dances, and the debates of local leaders. Today, it waits, empty but not forgotten, holding within its walls more than a century of community history.

This is the story of how a family’s journey south from North Carolina helped shape a town in Florida’s pine woods and how the schoolhouse they built still stands in remembrance of that era.

From North Carolina to the Florida Panhandle

The story begins in 1845, when William Penn (W.P.) Humphrey was born in Robeson County, North Carolina. He endured tragedy early in life, losing his first wife, Ellen, in 1869, and his second wife, Isabella, in 1878. Left with three young children, Humphrey packed up and began moving south, drifting through Georgia before finally settling in Florida’s panhandle in the 1890s.

There, he established the Humphrey Company, built on the booming turpentine trade. As the business grew, a community began to form around it.

Another family, the Mehaffeys, soon arrived from the Carolinas. Through marriage and partnership, John W. Mehaffey wed Humphrey’s daughter Addie, and together the families became the backbone of the settlement, running a turpentine still, a sawmill, and a general store.

A Town Takes Shape

By the turn of the century, the little settlement was growing. A modest church, Sunny Dell Baptist, doubled as a schoolhouse for local white children. But the success of the Humphrey and Mehaffey ventures drew more families, and Gretna soon had grocery stores, a drug store, three churches, a hotel, a blacksmith shop, and a cotton gin.

In 1905, the families sold one square mile of their land to be surveyed into town lots, paving the way for Gretna’s incorporation in 1909. And with a new town came the demand for a proper school.

On June 22, 1908, two town lots were sold to the Board of Public Instruction for $100. Construction began that summer, using local timber from the Humphrey sawmill. The result was an impressive two-story frame vernacular schoolhouse, costing $2,000. Six hundred dollars came from the county and the rest was raised by local families.

Though the building was not yet complete, classes began that August. With two teachers and a principal, students studied through the 8th grade, later expanded to 11th. One early principal, R.A. Gray, who served in 1910 and 1911, would later become Florida’s longest-serving Secretary of State.

The Gretna School Layout

The schoolhouse had three rooms on the first floor and one large room upstairs, complete with a stage. In its school days, the great room was used for morning chapel services. Originally, the building featured a belfry and bell, but these were removed early on due to leaks.

A wire fence once enclosed the yard to keep livestock out, though alumni fondly recall mischievous goats slipping in and chewing up schoolbooks.

Hard Times in Gretna

Like many rural towns, Gretna was tested in the decades that followed. World War I drew young men to battlefields overseas. In the 1920s, the boll weevil devastated cotton crops while the turpentine industry declined. Then came the Great Depression, which further weakened the small community’s economy.

By 1935, schools across Gadsden County were consolidated. Gretna’s children were bussed to Quincy, five miles away. The schoolhouse’s days as a classroom were over, but its service to the town was not.

A Building With Many Lives

From 1935 to 1940, the former schoolhouse hosted city commission meetings. In the early 1940s, it became a county health clinic, where many locals received their polio vaccines. During World War II, it served as a Red Cross headquarters, assembling care packages for soldiers overseas.

Over the decades, it was restored, repaired, and repurposed.

• In the 1960s, a general restoration was completed.
• In 1969, former students gathered for a reunion and launched a fundraising campaign.
• In later years, the building hosted dances, voting precincts, church activities, and town meetings.
• In 1995, it was deeded to the local Shriner’s Club.
• In 2002, it was returned to the W.P. Humphrey Club, where it has stood vacant ever since.

Despite its many uses over the years, only minor alterations were ever made, helping the building earn a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

**All vintage images are courtesy of the Florida Memory Project**