GOV
Schools
Public Schools
The public school system continued to expand during the Victorian period. With this expansion came new and larger facilities. The Blair School, at 2707 Rauschenbach Avenue, near St. Louis Place, was designed by School Board Architect August Kirchner, in 1881. The three-story red brick building has a five part plan, with a projecting six-bay central block, flanked by three-story wings. The school has the mansard roof and bracketed cornice of the Second Empire style, combined with Italianate influence in tall, narrow windows under segmental arches.
The Mount Pleasant School, was also designed by August Kirchner. Constructed in 1896, it, like the Blair School, is representative of late 19th century school design, and a mixture of stylistic influences. The central portion of the three-story building projects out from the facade; an intermediate terra cotta cornice with dentils and ornate window heads of the second story evoke the Renaissance Revival, while the multi-light windows and projecting cornice look to the Arts and Crafts movement.
Private Schools
As the City's population expanded, so did the number of parochial schools. St. Elizabeth's Academy, at Tennessee and Crittenden, in the Tower Grove East neighborhood, was constructed in 1882. The three-story red brick building is similar in design to the Evangelical Bethlehem Lutheran School of Period I, with a central projecting bay containing the entry, extending the full height of the building to end in a high pyramidal roof. The central bay carries most of the building's decoration: paired windows under segmental arches have stone imposts and keystones at second and third stories, and corner pilasters. The symmetrical blocks of the building on either side have windows set beneath Tudor arches, and a corbel table at the parapet.
