MOUNT DORA HISTORY: Milner-Rosenwald School

When the original one-room school house for Mount Dora’s African-American children burned down in 1922,  the new school opened in 1926 and served students up to 8th grade at the Highland Street location with seed money from the Rosenwald Foundation and matching funds came from Reverend Duncan Milner, a winter resident of Mount Dora concerned with racial injustice.

Booker T. Washington of the Tuskegee Institute and Julius Rosenwald, philanthropist and president of Sears Roebuck, built state-of-the art Rosenwald schools for African- American children across the South. The effort has been called the most important initiative to advance black education in the early 20th century.

The Rosenwald school was completed in 1926 and provided an education for African-American children until 1955 when a new Milner-Rosenwald school was built at 1250 Grant Avenue.

The new Milner-Rosenwald school was built at 1250 Grant Avenue to accommodate lower elementary school grades.   The original school building on Highland Street catered to middle school grades.  Once the new school campus was expanded in 1962,  students from all grades were taught at the new larger campus.   In 1972, the school was renamed Mount Dora Middle School after the end of racial segregation in Florida schools.  

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