Missouri's Oldest Surviving Black Schoolhouse Reopens in St. Louis County After Restoration

A one-room log schoolhouse that educated Black children in Chesterfield for more than half a century has been restored and reopened to the public. St. Louis County held an opening event on Saturday for African Schoolhouse #4 in the Historic Village at Faust Park, following nearly a year of preservation work.

The school operated from 1894 until 1950 on Wild Horse Creek Road. It was built for $600 after Black residents sued the Chesterfield School District. At the time, the Missouri Constitution called for free education for residents ages 5 to 21, but Black schools faced an added requirement: at least 20 students had to be enrolled before a school could operate. The district declined to build a school for Black students even though enough children lived in the area to fill a classroom.

St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said Black residents of Chesterfield understood education as a tool against oppression. "It's hard to imagine a time when education wasn't a fundamental right for everyone," Page said, describing the school as "an extraordinary act of defiance."

Curtis Johnson, 85, attended first and second grades there about 80 years ago. He walked 3 miles to class and passed another school he was not allowed to attend because he is Black. That building, he recalled, was "all brick, [with] heat, bathrooms on the inside." His own school had a small stove for warmth, and students had to go outside to use the restroom. He nonetheless remembers the school fondly.

After the school closed, the property was sold and turned into a one-car garage. St. Louis County Parks officials monitored the building for decades, and in 2021 the owner agreed to give it to the parks department. County officials said the structure was dilapidated, though it had survived both the Great Flood of 1993 and termites.

The St. Louis County Parks Foundation raised $30,000 to move the schoolhouse, which is described as Missouri's oldest surviving one-room Black schoolhouse, to Faust Park and restore it. The county kept about 90% of the original structure by salvaging logs, planks and old school boards that still bore chalk-written math lessons. Crews replaced the roof, added a scarlet red door with matching shutters, painted the vinyl siding white and furnished the interior with replica desks and books from the early 1900s.

St. Louis County Councilman Mark Harder, R-Ballwin, who represents Chesterfield, said the building and the people educated in it had endured over 130 years, and that their story would now be preserved in its new setting.

Doris Frazier, 91, a former substitute teacher at the school, visited the restored building for the first time in more than 50 years and said it looked as it did when she taught there. Walking through the 15-by-19-foot room, she asked those with her, "Could you imagine going to school like this?" Frazier taught reading, writing and math for first through eighth grades, and also gave piano lessons, directed choirs and traveled the world singing with her family group.

Speaking to the hundreds of people at the opening, Frazier said she was proud that some descendants of the school's students have gone on to college and earned doctoral degrees. Her goal, she said, was for Black children to receive the same education as any other child. She added that the fight for equal education was hard and remains unfinished. "I'm very pleased to know that we have come a long way," Frazier said. "But we haven't gone far enough."