09/07/2026
Set in a quiet Grayson County, Virginia pasture, the little red Clem’s Branch School is one of the few reminders of a once-busy community also known as Central. Mills, stores, and farms once dotted the area, but most have disappeared.
The community’s history reaches back to at least 1783, when a 2,159-acre land grant was recorded along Clem’s Branch of Fox Creek. About a century later, Clem’s Branch School was built in 1870. It also served as the local post office, with the name sometimes spelled “Klim’s Branch.”
Inside the one-room schoolhouse, many original features remain, including the teacher’s raised platform, blackboard, school bell, traces of the pot-bellied stove, and holes where student desks were fastened to the floor. Students even had their own metal drinking cups hanging around a communal water barrel.
Classes continued here until 1941, when local schools were consolidated.
