Center Point
Center Point was a community in the vicinity of modern Wolf Gap, at the “center point” area near the intersections of Tarpley Shop Rd., Bunker Hill Rd., Pisgah Rd. (Franklin Hayes Rd.), Old Stage Rd., Hardy Rd., & Wolf Gap Rd.
Rev. Monroe Moore, esteemed Missionary Baptist preacher, who was born and raised at Center Point and who is buried at Old Center Point Cemetery. From the Monitor of the Richland Creek Missionary Baptist Association.
Center Point was a community which overlapped with the historic Wolf Gap community, home to two cemeteries, a Missionary Baptist church, a school, & a Black fraternal lodge. Center Point is an example of the strong rural African-American communities that were central to the rural Black experience in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
In the 1850s, a “common country school” existed at Center Point for the children of local white families who could pay tuition. In 1884, John H. Birdsong (white) sold the “School House Lot” from this original Center Point School to the African-American Deacons of Center Point Church. Deacons R.D. Sherrill, Porter Beaty, and Tony Birdsong established a Missionary Baptist Church at Center Point soon thereafter and constructed a small single-story building on the site. As in many communities in the segregated South, Center Point functioned as a school building during the week and a church building on Sundays.
Mariah Bledsoe Henderson, Center Point resident, from the collection of Mr. John Alfred Birdsong
The original church & school building burned in 1912. It was replaced with a two-story building which also served as a fraternal lodge. That building was 30 ft x 40 ft, was heated with a wood stove, and students got their drinking water from a spring on the school grounds. During this period, Center Point Missionary Baptist Church was an important member of the Indian Creek Missionary Baptist Association. In September of 1911, the Indian Creek M.B. Association held its general sessions at Center Point, bringing visitors to the church from across the area.
Students at Center Point School, circa 1950-1952. From the collection of Mr. Mitchell Birdsong.
The school was known as both Bunker Hill and Center Point School in county school records through the 1940s. In the 1945-1946 school year, the daily “program of work” at Center Point School consisted of Devotion, Writing, Reading, English, Spelling, Geography, Safety, Arithmetic, and History. That year, the school’s Parent-Teacher Association held a fundraiser supper to raise money to have a class picture taken, and to clear and improve the school grounds with newly planted flowers.
In 1948, Mr. Henry Sims's Building Trades class built a new concrete block building on the site, heated with a coal stove. That building still stands today.
Center Point stopped serving as a school after the 1951-1952 school year, when it merged with Indian Creek School located near Bryson. Center Point Missionary Baptist Church closed in the late 1970s. The most recent church members included members of the Bailey, Driver, King, Brown, Horton, Smith, Vance, Garrett, Angus, and McCollum families.
The building and lot were vacant for decades. In 2003, the heirs of the church's final trustees sold the church property to Tim Fisk. His daughter, Kelly Fisk Hamlin, is the Executive Director of Wolf Gap. With Wolf Gap, Kelly is serving as a liaison between the landowners (her family) and the descendant community in an effort to determine the best future for Center Point.