West End High School

Just to the east is the former West End High School, which served African Americans during the segregation era. With the help of Matilda M. Booker, Mecklenburg County's Jeanes Fund supervisor of education for blacks, local parents first established the school in Clarksville in 1935. In 1951, the U.S. government purchased the West End property for the development of Buggs Island Lake. Using state funds set aside for a major school-construction initiative under Gov. John S. Battle, the county built a new W.E.H.S., which opened here in 1953. The last class graduated in 1969, when the building became a junior high school.