Old Main
History

Old Main Arts & Heritage Center,

also known by former students and the community as "Old Main",

is a three-story, stone Renaissance-style building that was constructed in 1913

from locally quarried sandstone.

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 Old Main, the original Nicholas County High School,

 is located in Summersville, West Virginia.

Graduating its first class in 1915, the school also served as a State Normal School, where teachers trained, from 1915 to 1930. The school was replaced in 1978 by the current Nicholas County High School, located on a separate campus, just north of Summersville.

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Old Main Arts & Heritage Center is owned by the Nicholas Old Main Foundation,

a non-profit organization, supported by volunteers that are dedicated to the area's historic preservation and the arts. 

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They leased the building in 1989 and obtained ownership in 1994.

This historic structure was purchased with the goal of restoring and preserving the school and creating a museum, a forum for the arts and a repository for local historic materials and artifacts.

 

Old Main was recognized for its architectural significance and added to the

National Register of Historic Places on March 27, 1989.