LEE SCHOOL

Lee School

12th & Pine streets

School no longer in operation

Lee was built in 1906 and was named for Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807-1870). It ceased operation as a school in 1971. For a time it housed the district's Instructional Resource Center (now based at the old Ish Elementary). The building was sold to the City of Little Rock in 1997, was extensively renovated and now houses the Little Rock Neighborhood Resource Center. For his leadership in establishing the center, Little Rock City Director Willie L. Hinton was honored in June 2005 when it was renamed the Willie L Hinton Neighborhood Resource Center.

Photo: www.stratfordhall.org

Robert Edward Lee was born January 19, 1807, in Stratford, Virginia, and was educated at the U.S. Military Academy. He distinguished himself in the battles of the Mexican War and was wounded in the storming of Chapultepec in 1847. President Abraham Lincoln offered him the field command of the Union forces, but Lee declined. On April 20, three days after Virginia seceded from the Union, he submitted his resignation from the U.S. Army. On April 23 he became commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces of Virginia. For a year he was military advisor to Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. In February 1865 Lee was made commander-in-chief of all Confederate armies; two months later the war was virtually ended by his surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox.

Lee's great battles included those at Antietam, Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. Lee applied for but never was granted official postwar amnesty. He accepted the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in the fall of 1865; within a few years it had become an outstanding institution. He died there on October 12, 1870. Lee has long been revered as an ideal by southerners and as a hero by all Americans. His antebellum home now is known as Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial, and is a national memorial. In 1975, Lee's citizenship was restored posthumously by an act of Congress.

Sources:
LRSD archives.
"Lee, Robert E[dward]," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003: http://encarta.msn.com

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Updated August 2005