In the early 1960s, local Anniston business leaders began to discuss creating a private school that could provide a classical education to the city's residents.

During the same month that the Anniston Academy opened its doors in 1963, many of its founders, including H. Miller Sproull, Charles Doster, and Lucian Lentz, fought alongside black community leaders to desegregate Anniston's public library, staring down opposition from the Ku Klux Klan.

Further additions in the early childhood department have brought the school to its current status of two sections in pre-kindergarten through grade twelve.

The Donoho School 75-acre (30 ha) campus is located in the foothills of the southern Appalachian Mountains.

Anniston, Alabama is accessible with two exits on Interstate Route 20 approximately 100 miles (160 km) from Atlanta, Georgia, to the east, and 60 miles (97 km) from Birmingham, Alabama, to the west.