In the early 1900s, Bays Mountain included 2 schools located within current Park boundaries. Both schools doubled as churches for the Bays Mountain community.

Bays Mountain School (aka Piney Flats School) 

Originally built as a log structure in the late 1800s, this school existed in two different locations over time. The first site was across from the dam in what’s sometimes called “Schoolhouse Cove”. Back then they called it “Schoolhouse Hollow” because there wasn’t a lake! The exact location of that site is unknown, and is probably underwater now.

Then in the late 1800s the first school site was taken down and a milled-lumber school building was built near the current intersection of Lakeside Trail and Sweetgum Trail. That site has been thoroughly identified on old maps, verbal accounts, and also metal-detecting equipment.

Beech Grove Missionary Baptist Church and School was located on the west end of Front Hollow. Beech Grove ended their school year earlier than other schools, causing some students to switch to Bays Mountain School until it dismissed for the summer. Teachers at Beech Grove included Parvin Smith, Sue Mullenix, and Odell Harbour Depew.

Odell Harbour Depew taught at Bays Mountain *and* Beech Grove Schools at different times in her life. At the Bays Mountain School, she was paid $30/month plus $2 for fuel (firewood and kerosene). She taught 1st through 8th grade and had 21 students in 1915.

After Beech Grove closed in the mid-1920s, some of those students then started going to Mountain View School which was farther west and not within current Park boundaries.