The only surviving log African American school in St. Louis County is being moved to Faust Historic Village.
African School House #4 was built on Wild Horse Creek Road in Chesterfield around 1894. While it was being constructed, Chesterfield school directors sent students to the neighboring Hilltown district and paid for nine months of schooling.
It is unknown how long the school was fully operational but a photograph from 1931 shows 23 students outside of the building. Nine of those students went on the serve in World War II and are buried in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
St. Louis County’s Park Foundation has worked 25 years to acquire the building, according to Mark Ohlendorf. He said the foundation has raised $15,000 to pay for the move and start the renovation, but $20,000 is still needed to complete the project.
“Our past is important to all of us, and we all need to know what happened back then and what’s going on, so you understand what’s going on now in the United States,” he said. “A lot of the unrest and all that started with the way Blacks were treated in those days, but we’ve come a long way, when you read some of the history of what has been said and done, we’ve come a long way,” said Ohlendorf, who is the President of the St. Louis County Parks Foundation.
The school building will be moved and reconstructed next to the Alt Schoolhouse in the Historic Village. Restoration is expected to be finished by Spring 2022.