Baldwin Elementary School

The earliest school in Baldwin dates back to circa 1867 with the Gilbert Academy and Industrial College. The first elementary school opened in 1905. Additional schools including the Sager Brown Home/Orphanage and Godman School (later just the Sager Brown School) operated from the 1920s to the late 1970s and the Baldwin Negro School was in operation from circa 1936 to 1958. A few years later in 1939 this school building opened as the second Baldwin Elementary School along Bayou Teche. It was built upon the grounds of the former Baldwin Academy that served as a boys boarding school operated by the Methodist Church from 1882-1936. The Baldwin Elementary School saw classroom and cafeteria additions in the early 1960s. It was desegregated by the end of that decade. This one story school building is a simple design constructed of standard cinder block construction with several windows in each classroom. This school housed students from grades 1-7 until a new school was built 2 miles away in 1999. The school reopened in 2000 as the ULL Lab School but later closed in 2009. The new vision for the school is to convert it to the Baldwin Town Hall with the town’s post office and community space connecting it to the town’s fire station located directly behind the former school building.