About three months after the building was torn down for three new houses, former students turned out Saturday to see a historical marker for the segregation-era Huntersville Rosenwald School dedicated.

At the corner of Old Town Point Road and Hampton Roads Parkway, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources marker gives a thumbnail history of the school.

The school was built in 1930 and 1931 with a $1,000 grant from the Julius Rosenwald fund and $6,000 in contributions from the black community and Nansemond County.

The president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., forerunner of today’s Sears stores, established the fund in 1917, helping pay for more than 5,000 schools for black children in 15 southern states.

Named for its first principal, Joseph S. Gibson, and with four teachers, Huntersville was one of the last Rosenwald schools built in Virginia. The program ended in 1932.

Catherine Ward-Eppes, who turned 97 on Friday, recalled one teacher at the school who proved instrumental in her education — “Ms. Parker.”

“She was a nice kind of teacher and she had time for the children,” Ward-Eppes said. “She encouraged the children to read and to stay in school.”

The marker, she said, will inspire children to “think about how far we’ve come … and that we should be on our way upward, not backward.”

Vivian Ward, 78, recalled that misbehaving students would have to hold out a hand for the teacher to strike. “That was one way to make me learn,” she said.

Some Huntersville residents had called on the city to spare the building. Though its renovation was included in the city’s Huntersville Initiatives Plan in 2004, it was privately owned. More recently, the city had been unable to locate the owners to recoup taxes unpaid since 2009.

“It bothered me that we didn’t get in contact with him,” said City Councilman Lue Ward, a participant in the dedication ceremony. “If the community was more aware of the process, I think they wouldn’t have let it be in this situation.”

But Ward added, “At least we have this.” The marker, he said, is well-positioned to educate a lot of people about the school.

Over time, said Pamela Schenian, an architectural historian with the Department of Historic Resources, Virginia has “tried to diversify” its historical marker program, which began in 1927 and is the oldest such program in America.

“We are looking at Rosenwald schools, the young Italian boy who developed the prototype for Mr. Peanut … we are really trying to tell more of the stories,” she said.

Gerri Norman, president of Huntersville Civic League, said Rosenwald schools improved education for blacks at a time when white schools “took most of the money for education.”

“We couldn’t preserve the school, but God preserved the legend,” she said. “This historical marker will live forever — God truly has the last say.”