Michael C. Riley Schools

Front: This is the site of two schools that served the black community of southern Beaufort County for most of the twentieth century. Bluffton Graded School, a small frame building constructed about 1900, was followed in 1954 by an elementary and high school named for Michael C. Riley (1873-1966), longtime trustee of Beaufort County School District # 2. Reverse: From 1954 to 1970 the elementary school educated Bluffton’s black students in grades 1-8 and the high school educated Bluffton’s and Hilton Head’s black students in grades 9-12. After county schools were desegregated in 1970, it was an elementary school for Bluffton’s black and white students until 1991. A new Michael C. Riley Elementary School opened nearby that same year.