Gainestown Schoolhouse

Built in 1919. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

From the record

“The Gainestown Schoolhouse is a historic school building on Clarke County Road 29 in Gainestown, Alabama, United States. It was built in 1919 as a one-room schoolhouse and now serves as a guesthouse for the Wilson-Finlay House across the road.”
Wikipedia article Gainestown Schoolhouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 21 National Register listings published here for Clarke County · listed in 1992 · category: Building · built in 1919.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. W. side Gainestown--Suggsville Public Rd. N of Good Hope Church, Gainestown, 36540
When was it listed? October 1992
Category. building
Census division. Grove Hill
When was it built? 1919
National Register reference number. 92000033 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

110 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 110 fires within 5 miles of Gainestown Schoolhouse between 1994 and 2020, burning about 1,266 acres in total. None started naturally. 38 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Arson/incendiarism	38
Debris and open burning	37
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	26
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Smoking	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Recreation and ceremony	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
4 September 2002	Smoking	1.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
19 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	18 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	SWR-20140919-001
14 September 2019	Debris and open burning	9.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	20190914-4
27 August 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	SWR-20130827-001
17 August 2020	Arson/incendiarism	15 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	20200817-3
3 July 2016	Arson/incendiarism	20 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	20160703-4
9 June 2008	Equipment and vehicle use	4.5 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
5 June 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	7.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	SWR-20130605-001

Every fire recorded in Clarke County

Storms near this property

6 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Gainestown, the town this property stands in, in 6 storm reports between 2003 and 2025: 4 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado, 1 hail. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
April 2011	Tornado (EF2)	Gainestown	$145,000	The tornado touched down taking a large section of roof off of a wood frame single story home near the center of circulation, pulling a single-wide mobile home off of its foundation on the north side of the circulation, and lifting off the roof of a nearby double-wide mobile home on the south side of the circulation. The tornado circulation quickly widened to 200 yards and strengthened, rolling another single-wide mobile home 60 yards then causing it to disintegrate as it hit a large tree. The mobile home's bent undercarriage was left about 60 yards to the left of the tornado path. The tornado continued to the east and quickly lifted in a pine forest.
May 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Gainestown	$30,000	High thunderstorm winds blew down several trees near Gainestown, one falling on the roof of a house, producing damage. Half dollar sized hail was also reported with this storm.
April 2017	Thunderstorm Wind	Gainestown	$10,000	Winds estimated at 70 mph blew a porch off a house on Walker Springs Road.
March 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	Gainestown	$5,000	A downed tree blocking the road at Walker Springs Road near Overstreet Grocery.
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Gainestown	-	High winds caused damage to a metal roof of a home.
February 2016	Hail	Gainestown	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Clarke County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Wilson-Finlay House	under 500 feet	1978
	Gainestown Methodist Church and Cemetery	0.7 miles	1999

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 92000033 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Clarke County	All 21 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.