A 1908 state law allowed counties to create boarding high schools to teach agricultural and vocational skills to rural teenagers along with traditional secondary subjects. Today, Forrest and Coahoma counties operate the only two agricultural high schools remaining of the fifty-five once functioning in the state, but neither is still a boarding school.
This campus began in 1912 with a two-story cubic administration building, dormitories for girls and boys (demolished), and 320 acres of surrounding farmland. In 1929, Overstreet remodeled and expanded the administration building, adding one-story wings to each side and a new unified facade. Brick chevrons and fluted pilasters play against the sinuous shapes of the main entrance’s centerpiece, a masonry screen depicting corn stalks. Cast-concrete bas-relief panels feature stylized images of agriculture and home science. The lake at the front of campus also dates to this 1929 renovation.