2302 Two Notch Road
Site of Edgewood School
The Old Edgewood School was established in 1892 on a quarter-acre lot on what is today an empty lot at 2302 Two Notch Road. The school originated as a small, frame building intended to serve the rural youth of the Edgewood neighborhood along Barhamville Road. As Edgewood grew into a more populous and prosperous suburb during the next two decades, the school population more than tripled by 1911, and the old school building was incorporated into a new, expanded structure that stood two stories high and included four classrooms and an auditorium. By 1914, attendance had increased to two hundred students, under the direction of five teachers. .
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Edgewood School children perform in a school play. Reprinted from The State, May 20, 1928. Image courtesy of The State Newspaper
The explosive growth of Edgewood School during the early twentieth century reflected the increasing urbanization of this northeast suburb of Columbia, paralleling the area’s development from a rural, agricultural district into a well-populated suburb of the city, increasingly connected by streetcar lines and urban infrastructure. In 1936, the heavy traffic along Two Notch Road, as well as a constrained amount of recreational space, prompted officials to relocate the school two blocks north near the intersection of Covenant Road and Two Notch, and the school operated here through the 1960s. The original school building was converted into apartments, which no longer stand.