Thyne Institute

In 1876 the United Presbyterian Church and the Rev. J. J. Ashenhurst, first principal, formed Thyne Institute, the only facility in Mecklenburg County offering courses for blacks until 1923. Two years after opening in a small building that had been used for curing tobacco, the school moved to a new building that John Thyne, for whom the school was named, had erected on five acres of land. The Institute grew in time into a boarding school and later into a four-year high school. Purchased by the Mecklenburg County School Board in 1946, the site presently serves as Chase City Elementary School.