EAST SPENCER — The Paul Laurence Dunbar Center, decimated Tuesday by a five-alarm fire that required dozens of firefighters, once unified a community and was a staple for the town of East Spencer.

The Dunbar Center’s history dates back more than 100 years, to 1900, when it was a one-room school house. At the time, the Dunbar Center was known as East Spencer Negro School. The school slowly expanded from one, to four, to eight rooms. The school grew significantly in 1921 with a new, 11-classroom building with an auditorium, library, office lunchroom and basement. The faculty also increased.

It was officially renamed to Dunbar High School in 1958. By 1958, the school had grown from one room and one teacher to 32 teachers and many other staff members. At the time it was renamed, the school — still all black at the time — could accommodate about 600 students. The renaming ceremony was attended by dozens of local political figures and a few state officials.

“The perilous days of the future need not cause fear in the hearts of our people if we make the best use of our present opportunities,” said C.H. Ferguson, the North Carolina director of Negro Education at the time. “We salvaged from the past, we look toward our future.”

The school was named for poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, born in 1872. Dunbar, whose parents were  freed slaves from Kentucky, was one of the first black poets to gain national recognition. By the time he was 14, Dunbar was already a published poet. He initially became an elevator operator because he was unable pay for college, but quickly realized success. He published several collections of poems and was featured in several national publications.

Dunbar’s health began declining in the late 1800s and he died in 1906, when he was 33 years old.

Just under a decade after the school was named for Dunbar, it was renamed again — this time as North Rowan Middle — and became racially integrated. At its peak, total enrollment reached 1,200 students and 62 teachers.

Fast forward to the 1990s, when East Spencer residents rallied around the school — North Rowan Middle at the time — opposing plans to tear down part of the campus and turn the site into an alternative school.

Eventually, North Rowan Middle became a community center with the name Paul Laurence Dunbar Center. In 1995, still under ownership of the Rowan-Salisbury School System, it changed names and eventually housed both public and private entities.

A few of the tenants included facilities for the Rowan County Department of Health, the Department of Social Services and a program called The Learning Curves — run by former school board member Kay Wright Norman. The Dunbar Center — now a fire-ravaged building — symbolizes many of the same themes used in the poetry of Dunbar, said Norman.

“It was an evolving story that never got to where I think it could be, personally,” Norman said about the Dunbar Center. “I think it represents everything in the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar. There was always a struggle, and you have to go through that struggle before you could get to that next place.”

Norman came to the Dunbar Center in 1996, after leaving her position as director of the Livingstone College Academy. She said the Dunbar Center’s location and its history made it a rallying point.

“It’s such an enduring symbol to the East Spencer community,” she said.

Even though it was a community center, the school system continued using portions of the building until 2000, though at the time, much of the building had fallen into disrepair. In 2004, school officials reported a high volume of crime and began looking to sell the building.

In 2006 the school system sold it to New Unity Rising LLC, based in Washington D.C. Two years later, it was sold again to Shady Grove Baptist Church in East Spencer. The Dunbar Center, valued at $600,000 at the time of its dedication in 1958 had an assessed value of $257,627 at the time of the 2008 sale.

Contact reporter Josh Bergeron 704-797-4246