1003 Elmwood Avenue
Wardlaw Junior High
Children living in Cottontown have received their education from a number of different nearby schools during the course of the suburb’s existence. After September 1927, students attended Wardlaw Junior High School. Located two blocks west of Cottontown on land formerly belonging to W.A. Clark’s plantation, this facility was one of two junior high schools built to prepare students who would later attend Columbia High School. When completed, the James B. Urquhart-designed, Late Gothic Collegiate-style structure became the first freestanding junior high school in the state. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, this impressive building was repurposed as an apartment complex for senior citizens in 1999 as a project of the United Housing Associates and Piedmont Foundation of South Carolina.
