
Carpenter Number Two is one of three public schools built, furnished, and donated by Natchez philanthropist Nathaniel Leslie Carpenter. R. H. (Reuben Harrison) Hunt of Chattanooga, who designed both Carpenter One and Two schools in Natchez, maintained a Jackson office to help supervise his many Mississippi projects. The two-and-a-half-story T-plan school of straw-colored brick with cast-stone trim has restrained classical motifs decorating the parapets and the doorway cornices. In 1913, the American School Board Journal selected the school, with its elevated running track and indoor swimming pool, as one of the country’s most outstanding public school buildings. The school closed in the 1970s, and the building was renovated for its new purpose.