Founded in 1878 as a two-room school and named for state senator Whitmell P. Tunstall, in 1918 the Whitmell Farm-Life School became the first rural consolidated school in Pittsylvania County. Sarah Archie Swanson Beverley, who between 1916 and 1951 taught here and served as principal, believed that “the country school must be the center of community life.” Under her leadership, Whitmell School attained that goal as a model progressive school. In 1920, the national Conference on Rural Education and Country Life was held here, followed in 1923 by the Virginia Rural Life Conference, which Gov. E. Lee Trinkle and U.S. Sen. Carter Glass addressed.