Carver Community Center
Some students from Davis Bottom students attended a series of two public schools located on the site of what is now The Carver Community Center at 522 Patterson Street. These two schools played an integral role in the history of public education for African Americans in Lexington from 1883 to 1972.
The site’s history begins with nearby Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church, which established one of the first schools for African Americans in the basement of its “old” church building in 1874. Within a decade, enrollment swelled to 108 students so a church committee raised $900 to purchase a lot for construction of Patterson Street School (site of present day playground). Opened in 1883, Patterson was built within twenty feet of noisy and dangerous railroad tracks. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration provided funds for construction of George Washington Carver Elementary School, which served neighborhood students from 1934 until 1972.