Central High School, St. Louis Missouri

Date added: September 09, 2023

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William B. Ittner designed Central High School in 1902 in his capacity as Architect and Commissioner of School Buildings for the St. Louis Board of Education. Ittner became nationally and even internationally recognized for his ideas regarding educational architecture during and after his career with the St. Louis Public Schools in particular for his "Open Plan" design of which Central is an excellent example. The school was originally named Yeatman High School (renamed Central High School in 1927) after James Yeatman, a local banker and philanthropist who served as president of the St. Louis Sanitary Commission during the Civil War. The school was designed in 1902, opened in 1904, and expanded per original plans in 1907. The neighborhood surrounding the school at the time was a rapidly developing streetcar commuter suburb on St. Louis' north side. Constructed simultaneously with McKinley High School on the south side of the City, Yeatman was a lavish investment in the City's burgeoning school system with state-of-the-art facilities for students including a purpose-built gymnasium, 1,000-seat auditorium, restrooms on upper floor levels, and shower/bath facilities. These two schools were constructed to alleviate crowding at the original Central High School, which had previously drawn students from all across the City. After 100 years of service, the school building was closed after the 2003-04 school year.

The area surrounding Yeatman High School was primarily agricultural until development began in earnest after the Civil War. Immediately to the northwest of the school is Fairgrounds Park, a site that began hosting the Mississippi Valley Agricultural and Mechanical Fair in 1856. The land was purchased by the City from John O'Fallon and used for a grand annual exhibition of agricultural products and mechanical inventions in addition to horse racing and livestock shows. By the time the fair began, Natural Bridge had become a plank road, a feature which no doubt facilitated the festivities.

The presence of an excellent road and abundant undeveloped land also led to the establishment of Benton Barracks adjacent to the Fairgrounds during the Civil War. Organized by General John C. Fremont, the barracks housed as many as 23,000 recruits at a given time.

Most of the Fairgrounds and all of the Barracks were located just west of the City limits, which had been extended to a line 660 feet west of Grand Avenue in 1855. The future site of Yeatman School however was located within the City proper by 1855.

The Compton and Dry map of St. Louis in 1875 shows homes on the future site of the school, with agricultural land stretching to the north on the opposite side of Natural Bridge Avenue. The area was still a mix of clusters of homes and expansive farms, though the Fairgrounds had evolved into quite a spectacle featuring a permanent horse track, amphitheater, art gallery, lake, halls for all manner of commodities and products, bandstands and offices.

St. Louis' population grew quickly around the turn of the century, increasing by more than 75,000 residents between 1890 and 1900, and by more than 111,000 between 1900 and 1910. While many new elementary schools were constructed during these years, until McKinley and Yeatman were completed in 1904, a single high school was responsible for the secondary education of the entire district population. When Ittner was hired by the St. Louis City School Board in 1898, the need for new high schools in both the northern and southern portions of the City was acute.

In the first two years of the 20^th Century, crowding stress on the City's single high school was resulting in extreme measures in the classroom and a disturbingly low high school attendance rate compared with other cities. In his annual report for 1899-1900, Superintendant Louis Soldan discussed the City's low high school enrollment rate and blamed it on the fact that the system contained only one school for white pupils. Referring to what was then known as Central High School in what is today known as Midtown, he noted that students from the farther reaches of what was at the time a city covering 66.2 square miles and containing nearly 600,000 people, found it difficult to simply get to the school.

In an ironic twist, the other major problem with the school that was described as "too difficult to get to" was overcrowding. The next year, he once again addressed the access issue and then illustrated the crowding problem with a description of "double time sessions" at the high school in which two teachers would simultaneously teach an entire day's lessons in half of a day before repeating the process with a second afternoon class.

In 1902, the Board of Education decided to act upon the need for new branch high schools; one in the northern part of the City and one in the south. Designed to facilitate access, the sites chosen for the schools were embedded within dense, though still developing neighborhoods with excellent streetcar service. Unlike the system of neighborhood elementary schools, which largely drew from the population in their immediate vicinities, the high schools had to be accessible to students who lived throughout the City.

The site chosen for Yeatman (Central) was situated along the busy east-west thoroughfare of Natural Bridge Avenue. Sited to serve the City's older north side neighborhoods immediately to its south and east, and many of the rapidly developing "suburban" neighborhoods immediately to its west and north, Yeatman (Central) was accessible to both older and new residential districts. Instructions for site selection took into consideration both the cost of land and proximity to at least one existing grammar school. In the case of Yeatman (Central), this school was the William Greenleaf Eliot School (extant), located one half mile to the north along Glasgow Avenue.

Ittner drew up plans for both McKinley and Yeatman (Central) High Schools in 1902 and by January 1^st, 1903, advertisements for "shovelers and teams" wanted to prepare the site of the school for construction had begun to appear in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Work appears to have progressed quickly and by the middle of March, Ittner was advertising for masons. Construction of Yeatman (Central) and its sister school McKinley began roughly at the same time, though it appears that Yeatman may have progressed more rapidly as the building was described as nearing completion when McKinley's cornerstone was laid. The school opened on September 6^th, 1904.

Yeatman thrived in its first few years though enrollment in its first year (400 students) was markedly below its capacity of 1,000. However, the Board of Education's presumption that the improvement in classroom conditions brought on by the expansion of the high school system would result in increased enrollment was correct with 1,300 students enrolled in the two schools in the 1904-05 school year. Enrollment quickly reached capacity and in 1907, two identical two-story rear additions were constructed extending eastward from the north and south wings. These additions were designed to house manual training courses, though the school itself was tasked with providing instruction in various trades as well as a science and humanities curriculum.

In addition to general classrooms, the gymnasium, auditorium, lunch room, kitchen and library, the plans show the presence of classrooms dedicated to shorthand and typewriting, mechanical drawing, art, business, photography, machine and blacksmith shops. Of note, it appears that the 1907 rear additions were actually components of Ittner's original design whose construction was delayed for an unknown reason. Both appear on the original linens labeled as "future shop." The massive 1,000 seat auditorium and purpose-built gymnasium that Ittner included in Yeatman (Central) and McKinley, as well as the bathing facilities and restrooms located in upper floors were essentially all experimental concepts that the architect was testing. Later, these features would become standard aspects of Ittner schools. As such, in addition to the architect's adherence to exploring the advantages of the "Open" plan, with the high schools, he also used the opportunity to test and refine the design and placement of amenities that would become standard aspects of his future schools.

In the first decades of the 20^th Century, the population of the City boomed. Between 1900 and 1920 St. Louis grew by nearly 200,000 residents and the neighborhood surrounding Yeatman (Central) developed rapidly. Need for another high school in the vicinity was addressed by the construction of Beaumont High further to the west along Natural Bridge. For reasons that are unclear, Beaumont replaced Yeatman (Central) and all students and teachers were transferred to the new school when it opened in 1926. This transfer proved to be incredibly timely because at the beginning of the next school year, a tornado swept across the north-central portion of St. Louis and severely damaged the original Central High School on North Grand. At this point, the students and faculty from the damaged, original Central were moved into the underutilized Yeatman, bringing the name of their former school with them. From 1927 onward, Yeatman became known as "Central" and the original Central was subsequently demolished.

Building Description

Central High School is located at 3616 Garrison (preferred) although it also has the addresses 3617 Glasgow Avenue and 2900-2950 Natural Bridge Avenue in the independent city of St. Louis, Missouri. The school occupies all of city block 5217 in St. Louis' Jeff VanderLou neighborhood. Central High School is an excellent example of the "open" floor plan conceived and refined by Architect William Ittner during his tenure as architect for the St. Louis Board of Education and Commissioner of School Buildings. Central is situated to the southeast of Fairgrounds Park in the northeastern portion of St. Louis City. The surrounding neighborhood was built primarily around the turn of the century as a middle-class streetcar commuter suburb. In addition to Ittner's classic plan, the school is lavishly ornamented with abundant stone trim, red brick laid in Flemish bond, and a projecting entry flanked by twin stair towers capped with four-sided curvilinear domes (the original copper sheathing has been stolen). It retains its original terraced front yard, wrought iron fence, and sparse, but orderly landscaping in keeping with Ittner's specifications. The interior of the school retains many original features including much of its original maple flooring, wooden banisters, marble stairs, marble wainscoting, and a marble plaque dedicated in 1909 on the 100^th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. The school is one of two high schools that Ittner was tasked with designing early in his career with the St. Louis Public Schools. Through the process of designing these schools, the architect not only refined his concept of the "open plan," but also tested progressive features that would later become standards of his designs such as upper-floor restrooms, shower facilities, auditoria and purpose-built gymnasia.

The school building is constructed of brick laid in Flemish Garden Wall bond with abundant stonework used to accent bays and corners. This bond was frequently used by Ittner in schools of this period and was specified as a component of the overall aesthetic. Further ornament is provided by elaborate stone reliefs adorning the projecting entry, and curved domes atop the paired stair-towers flanking the front door. The school's form is a variation on Ittner's "Open" Plan and represents the development of the architect's ideas regarding school design. Designed by Ittner in his capacity as Commissioner of School Buildings as one of two flagship high schools to supplement a single high school already in existence, the architect was given wide leeway to explore his ideas. As such, the school was used as a proving ground for costly features such as bath facilities, a gymnasium and large central auditorium, that later became standards of the architect's work. Having served the students of St. Louis for 100 years, Central High School closed following the 2003-04 school year as a component of measures designed to deal with declining enrollment.

Central is situated at the north end of a highly intact early 20th-century neighborhood dominated by substantial brick residences. The school is surrounded by its original wrought iron fence and retains its landscaped yards on the west and north sides. The south side of the school is located close to the sidewalk property line and the rear (original schoolyard) contains a courtyard that is formed by two pairs of north and south wing additions dating to 1907 and 1967 respectively. The school's primary facade faces Garrison Avenue and is fronted by a landscaped and terraced yard.

The school itself is a three-story (plus a raised basement) Jacobethan-style building constructed beginning in 1902. The building is composed of a dominant four-story central block flanked by five-story stair towers and three-story wings. Each wing terminates in a three-story block that is pulled out beyond the plane of the central block. To the east (rear) each wing has a one-story plus a raised-basement addition dating to 1907. Each of these wings are in turn connected by an enclosed raised hallway to brick and concrete additions dating to 1967. The 1907 additions are identical and were part of the original school design (though their construction was delayed) matching the bond and limestone details of the rest of the school. The 1967 additions are similar, but not identical. They are both one-story buildings faced with red brick laid in Flemish Bond. The southern addition has exposed cast concrete structural elements; the northern addition does not express structural components.

The central entrance to the school is situated beneath a massive limestone portico consisting of Doric columns with entablature. The frieze is ornamented with the name "Yeatman High School." The top of the entablature forms a shallow balcony at the second floor. A limestone balustrade with heavy pedestals outlines the balcony. At the second and third story levels of the projecting entry tower are boarded window bays. The bays at both levels have carved limestone surrounds and mullions and are framed with engaged limestone Ionic columns supporting entablature and carved limestone friezes. Above the third story frieze is a segmental pediment with a central shield adorned with a "Y" (for Yeatman) flanked by griffin heads. The parapet wall above the third story contains a string of three carved limestone panels with geometric designs on either side of a central limestone relief depicting a male and female figure flanking a central shield. The central panel is capped with limestone finials.

Brick quoins edge the outside corners of the building. All elevations of the building (with the exception of the 1967 additions) have a raised basement faced with rusticated limestone.

The stair towers contain three, front-facing window openings at levels of the first, third and fourth (attic) floors. The windows are boarded, but have stone surrounds with quoins and mullions that divide the openings into a two-over-two configuration with the upper two openings smaller than the lower two. The window openings have flat arches and sills and hood moldings all executed in limestone. At the attic level, the window opening contains a single fixed or casement window in a flat limestone surround with a limestone pediment. At this level on the sides of the stair towers (facing north and south respectively) is a single round porthole window with a limestone surround. The towers are capped with the wooden frames of square-based cupolas with sweeping convex sides. The cupolas were originally covered with copper. Finials of an indeterminate metal are intact.

The central block of the school extends to the north and south on each side of the central projecting entry. On both sides of the entry, the block contains two window bays at each floor. Each bay has a flat limestone surround with stone quoins and mullions. Mullions divide each bay into five window openings; all are boarded. Above the bays, the parapet wall is formed by a limestone balustrade. Between the bays, the parapet wall is simply an extension of the brick wall. The parapet level is delineated from the top of the third story by a limestone belt course. Another limestone belt course delineates the second floor from the third, as well as the raised basement from the first floor. The raised basement contains two sets of paired windows with flat limestone surrounds, quoins, and stone mullions. The windows pass through the rusticated limestone basement facing and the limestone water table and penetrate the brick portion of the facade.

At either end of the central block are projecting wings. Centered on each wing is another projecting section at the levels of the raised basement, first floor and second floor. This secondary projection contains the window bays at these levels. The secondary projection is accented with limestone quoins and contains two window bays at the basement level and one window bay at the first and second level. All window bays have flat limestone surrounds with quoins. The bays on the basement level contain a single boarded window opening. The bays on the first and second level contain five windows openings separated by stone mullions. The top of the second story of the projecting section forms a shallow balcony. A limestone balustrade with heavy pedestals outlines the balcony. On the third level, the bay is flush with the wall of the wing and contains a bay with five window openings separated into a one-over-one configuration by vertical and horizontal stone mullions. The limestone belt courses of the main block wrap the projecting wings. The wings have a flat brick parapet walls. The roof of the school is flat.