Old Elementary School in Saint Louis closed since 1980

Mount Pleasant School, St. Louis Missouri

Date added: November 01, 2023

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Missouri
School

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Mount Pleasant School is a small grammar school located not far from the Mississippi River in south St. Louis. Designed in 1896 by School Board Architect A. H. Kirchner in traditional local materials of brick and terra cotta.

The earliest St. Louis public schools were constructed to conform to the Lancasterian system of education in which there was a large study hall supervised by a head teacher with one or more small adjacent classrooms monitored by assistant teachers. In 1857, the Board of Education of St. Louis adopted a graded system and promulgated "principles of school construction" which were to dictate school design in St. Louis for the next four decades. The principles called for schools of "uniform specifications" to be built throughout the City as needed. In "thinly settled districts," schools were to be one-half or one-third full size and "constructed with a view to receiving additions when needed." The Board recommended that each school follow a square, four room per floor plan. Vertical additions would provide second and, if necessary, third floors.

A three-story, four rooms per floor school would accommodate twelve classrooms then thought to be the optimum number for one administrator.

Not only did the change to multi-room schools with grade classifications make sense from an administrative and educational perspective, it equipped the Board with a flexible planning tool. In theory, the four room expandable school allowed the Board to provide each neighborhood with no more than the number of seats required and to increase the number of seats only if and when an increase in the population of the district so warranted. In practice, schools in densely populated areas often grew well beyond the prototypical twelve-room building.

Although the Board had established the basic principles, other factors influenced public school design. During the 1860s and 1870s, cost was of primary importance. Consequently, rooms were large to accommodate as many students as possible. Corridors, to spare expense, were narrow and dimly lit by few windows. There were generally no more than four windows per classroom. By the 1880's many educators expressed a growing concern for good learning conditions and the health of the teachers and students. This national trend is reflected in the Board's Annual Report for the 1898-1899 school year. The Annual Report emphasized correct window treatment and stressed that classrooms and corridors should be well-illuminated. Classrooms were to be not too wide so that even the seats farthest from the windows would receive plenty of light.

Architect A. H. Kirchner's design for Mount Pleasant illustrates both the neighborhood school prototype developed by the Board in 1857 and the late nineteenth-century design improvements. Well-illuminated, wide corridors virtually eliminate the dreary interior associated with earlier schools. Smaller classrooms created better conditions for teachers and students. Groupings of large windows filled the classrooms with light. This last was especially important for schools, such as Mount Pleasant which originally were not equipped with artificial lights.

Kirchner's experience in school design began in the 1880s while working with his brother H. W. Kirchner during the latter's term as School Board Architect. Together the brothers designed numerous public schools for the Board. When an expanding practice drew his brother "out west", A. H. Kirchner applied for and received an appointment as Board Architect. Under his direction, thousands of seats were added yearly to the school system in an effort to accommodate the growing population.

School Board records indicate that the small district served by Mount Pleasant was carved out of a larger, crowded district in 1895. Finding, in 1896, no immediate need for a full-size school, Kirchner designed a four-room, one-story, square-plan school capable of receiving up to two additional stories. By 1899, the demand for seats had outgrown the existing school, and an eight-room, two-story addition was built over the original structure. This addition was under the supervision of William B. Ittner who had replaced Kirchner as School Architect in 1897.

Since the traditional four-rooms-per-floor plan included classrooms only, space for auxiliary activities was provided by means of additions to the main building. Two such additions to Mount Pleasant were built.

The first addition, in 1913, created supplementary space in a classroom newly designated for use as a kindergarten; the extra space was needed to accommodate traditional kindergarten activities and equipment. Designed by William B. Ittner, the addition complements the main building. Groupings of windows and the use of carved wood brackets similar to but smaller than those of the main building, echo features of the original design.

In 1928, at the request of the Mount Pleasant School Patron's Alliance, a one-story gymnasium was constructed. Under the direction of School Architect R. M. Milligan, careful attention to size and scale, and the use of matching red brick and molded terra cotta unified the main building and the gymnasium.

Although the Board might have remained committed to the traditional neighborhood school indefinitely, several events combined to cause a precipitous change in policy. In 1897, a City ordinance went into effect requiring that all schools thereafter constructed be fireproof. Anticipating increased costs associated with building "numerous small schools" of fireproof construction, the Board promptly adopted a new policy of building eighteen-room schools. The piece of building small schools with a view to expanding was dropped entirely.

Another event that occurred in 1897 was the reorganization of the St. Louis Board of Education under a new State law. Before the close of the 1896-97 school year, a newly formed Board appointed William B. Ittner to succeed, A. H. Kirchner as School Architect. Ittner, following extensive travel across the country researching school design, soon initiated the modified "E", sometimes referred to as the modified-"H" plan in his designs. Mount Pleasant School, however, was completed according to Kirchner's design. Until 1980, when it was closed pursuant to a system-wide de-segregation plan, Mount Pleasant remained in use as a neighborhood school.

Building Description

Mount Pleasant School is a three-story, classical revival building constructed in 1896-99 and located on St. Louis' south side. Masonry-bearing walls rest on a stone foundation. The exterior is finished in red brick in stretcher bond and embellished with red terra cotta. Rusticated red-brown brick faces the raised basement. Elongated, carved. wood brackets support the overhang of the low-pitch hipped roof and add a Craftsman touch.

The building fronts on Nebraska Avenue facing west. Play yards adjoining the building at each side. An iron fence borders the school grounds in front. The building is essentially square in plan. There is a wide central corridor with two classrooms on each side. The interior of the school is virtually unornamented.

Fenestration of the primary, multi-planar facade establishes nine bays grouped in three-bay sections. The main entrance to the school is centered in a projecting pavilion and accentuated with a molded terra cotta surround. Wide piers, slightly battered at the first story, flank the entrance. Single windows, enriched with segmentally arched terra cotta pediments and consoles, and with terra cotta sills and sill brackets, are set in each pier. An entablature, also of terra cotta, completes the first story of the pavilion. At the second and third stories, triple windows are centered over the entrance and single windows are set in the piers at each side. Above the third floor and a terra cotta lintel course set with disks, shaped terra cotta lintels crown the piers.

The north and south sections of the primary facade are identical. There are groupings of three windows at each story; terra cotta lintels with consoles embellish the first-story windows. Lintel and sill courses at the second and third stories continue across the entire primary facade returning to continue along the sides of the building. There are several small, single, rectangular attic windows.

At the north and south sides of the building, groupings of windows and ornamentation echo the primary facade. There is a small, one-story addition on the south side.

Large, multi-light windows illuminate the stair tower at the rear of the building. A molded terra cotta cornice wraps around the one-story gymnasium recalling the ornamentation of the main building.

The school was built in 1896-97 as a one-story, four-room structure. In 1899, the second and third stories were added. Although drawings from 1899 show a flat roof, the existing bracketed, low-pitch roof appears to be original and may have been the product of a last-minute, on-site revision of the plans. At the latest, the bracketed roof was in place by 1906.

In 1913, a one-story addition was constructed on the south side of the school. The entrance on the primary facade (west elevation) was altered to provide safety doors at the exterior. The large stair tower at the rear of the school (east elevation) was erected then also. The gymnasium was added at the rear of the school (east elevation) in 1928. At an unknown date, the set of stairs at the east end of the corridor; south side; were removed and the second and third floors extended across that opening.