James Ormond Wilson Normal School

Architect: Snowden Ashford
Year: 1911
Style: Tudor Revival
City: Washington, DC

Founded in 1873 as the all-white Washington Normal School, the institution was renamed in 1913 for the city's first superintendent of schools, James Ormond Wilson. City architect Snowden Ashford designed its main building at 1100 Harvard Street NW, completed in 1912 in a distinctive Jacobethan style of red brick with limestone trim.

the building

Merger into DC Teachers College. The school trained teachers until 1955, when it merged with the all-Black Miner Normal School to form the District of Columbia Teachers College, ending separate, segregated teacher-training institutions in the city.

the style

Ashford designed the school in the Jacobethan style, distinguished by its red brick construction with limestone trim.

the architect

Snowden Ashford served as Washington, D.C.'s municipal architect, designing the Normal School among the city's public buildings.

significance

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015, the building now serves as a campus of the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School.

nearby

Blanche Kelso Bruce Elementary School 0.2 mi · Renaissance Revival · 1916
Banneker Recreation Center 0.3 mi · Colonial Revival · 1934
Normal School for Colored Girls 0.3 mi · Colonial Revival
Clifton Terrace 0.4 mi · Colonial Revival · 1915
Tivoli Theatre 0.4 mi · Renaissance Revival
Kelsey Temple Church of God in Christ 0.5 mi · Neoclassical

All 315 buildings in Washington, DC