Lee County Board of Education Office Complex (Jonesville Institute)

This complex of brick buildings represents the story of public education in Lee County from the early to the mid-twentieth century. The earliest building is Jonesville Institute, a two-story hipped-roofed school building with a central projecting pavilion capped by a broken pedimented gable. Its brick walls are laid in American bond accented with courses of dark brick to suggest rustication. A belt course, keystones, and quoins carry out the Colonial Revival theme. The second building on the left originally served as the Jonesville Elementary School and is now the Lee County Board of Education Office. This Colonial Revival one-story brick building set on a high foundation has bands of tall sash windows, gable ends with parapets, and hipped-roofed dormers. The gymnasium to its left has a tall central section flanked by flat-roofed wings that later received shed roofs. The facade is highlighted by brick piers with concrete caps and a brick parapet that extends across the front of the central section. The former one-story home economics building (now housing the Head Start program), to the left of the gymnasium, resembles a Colonial Revival house, a form that was considered by educators as an ideal learning environment for the teaching of housekeeping and other domestic skills to female students.