The Evolution of the Pattonville School District
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Early Roots
The first school in the north St. Louis County area was located in Marais des Liards, later known as Bridgeton. In 1806, Lewis Rogers established the Moravian School, a public school to educate both white settlers and American Indians. The school was named after a Moravian minister who was passing through the area and learned of the need for a teacher and offered his services. Lewis Rogers’ institution was the earliest direct ancestor of the Pattonville School District.
In 1835, the Rev. Walker D. Shumate, who previously taught school in Virginia, started his own private boarding school for boys. The one-room Shumate Academy (also known as Oakley Seminary) was located on the now rerouted St. Charles Road, east of the wedge intersection of Owen’s Station Road (now Natural Bridge). This central location served local farms and plantations, as well as the entire township, an area bordered by the Missouri River east to Ashby Road, and from Anglum (Robertson) south to Olive Street.
In 1836, Absolom Link established the Mount Pleasant Schoolhouse east of the Fee Fee community (near modern Midland and Lindbergh). By 1836 three important schools served the area: Shumate Academy, Mount Pleasant and the Moravian School.
1845: Three districts established: Creve Coeur, Mount Pleasant and District No. 1
By 1845 the one-room Shumate Academy was bursting at the seams with 60 to 75 pupils. To meet the challenge, the trustees decided to divide the area into three new districts:
The western area, around Spurrville (modern Westport Plaza), became Creve Coeur and was run by Henry Leonidas Dorsett;
The eastern area, south of modern Old St. Charles Road, became Mount Pleasant and was run by Campbell Link; and
The northern area, the Bridgeton/Anglum (or Robertson) area, became District No. 1 and continued under Walker Shumate’s administration.
1849: District No. 1 evolves into Mount Airy District and Fee Fee District
In 1849, 59 students attended school in the new District No. 1. On Sept. 29, 1849, James Lackland and others made a petition to divide the district.
The western half of District No. 1 became the Mount Airy District, which kept the old Shumate Academy schoolhouse.
The eastern half of District No. 1 became the Fee Fee District.
Because the old Shumate Schoolhouse was part of the Mount Airy District, the new Fee Fee District was left without a schoolhouse. Classes for the new Fee Fee District were temporarily held in the Fee Fee Baptist Church. In 1850, Mrs. Sarah Long donated an acre of land on Fee Fee Road to be used for a schoolhouse, and a new one-room brick structure was built and named Fee Fee School. (Later, Pattonville Grade School would locate across the street.) At about the same time the Fee Fee School opened, a white-framed, Penn School was erected on modern-day Creve Coeur Mill Road on Fee Fee Creek.
As the decade of the 1850s began, five key public schools served the original area: the new Fee Fee School, Penn School, a new school in Creve Coeur, the Mount Pleasant School and the original Shumate Academy. (In Bridgeton, the Moravian School also continued and was later known as Bridgeton Academy.) Each school was in its own district and had its own board of trustees.
1864: The legislature establishes a new district
In 1864, during the war, the legislature incorporated a new school district, which included Bridgeton and Bridgeton Commons. Bridgeton Academy (formerly the Moravian School) became part of this district. After the Civil War, a school for African American children became a branch of the academy.
In 1869, the Junction School opened as another public school at the intersection of St. Charles Rock Road and Natural Bridge. The white-frame, one-room school could accommodate 30 pupils and was said to be across from the original Shumate Academy site.
In 1876, St. Louis City and St. Louis County officially split, and the community of Fee Fee was granted a post office. The government placed the new post office in the Patton General Store (owned by brothers Elliott and John R. A. Patton), and John R. A. Patton was named the new postmaster. The name of the community was changed to Pattonville. The Patton General Store was located at the intersection of Fee Fee Road and St. Charles Rock Road on the same side of the street as present-day Branneky True Value Store.
In 1880, the original, one-room brick Fee Fee School was torn down to make way for a frame new building with a large classroom, two anterooms and a stone basement. The new Fee Fee School was commonly known as “Mrs. Ford’s Bonnet” because of the large cupola on the front of the building. The Fee Fee School was again replaced in 1907 with a two-room brick building. This new building, the Pattonville Grade School, was located on the west side of Fee Fee Road (south of I-70, across from the present Vantage Credit Union) across the road from the former Fee Fee School.
In 1924, the original Maryland Heights School was designed by Joseph Senne and built by Daly at a cost of $20,000. It was dedicated in September 1924 for use that school year. The building consisted of six rooms with four teachers and an enrollment of 140 students. This building eventually became the Maryland Heights High School, part of the Maryland Heights School District, which was annexed into the Pattonville School District in the 1960s and later became the Pattonville Administrative Center.
The Pattonville Grade School became too small, and sometime between 1925 and 1927, renovations took place. Renovations centered on the old school’s two-room brick structure and included four classrooms, an auditorium and basement playrooms.
1930: The Pattonville School District established
As the 1930s began, the district was made up of only a portion of its present area. The district supported just one grade school, an elementary program with facilities for grades one through eight. Missouri enacted a law in 1931 entitling students to attend a nearby high school, with the tuition to be shared by the sending district and the state. The district’s share of the tuition was $40 a year. Many took advantage of this law. Pattonville students graduating from grade school attended high schools such as Ritenour, Normandy and University City.
During a special April 1930 election, district residents voted to change the school/district from “rural” to “town” school status. Prior to the election, the school was known as Fee Fee District No. 16. After the voters approved the switch, the board of the new town district approved naming the district the School District of Pattonville, St. Louis County.
Serving on the new school board were: James E. Avery, president, Oliver Branneky, Chris Asmus, Ben Walz, August Hollenberg and James Palitzsch. Almost all board members were former Pattonville students. C.C. Birch became Pattonville’s first superintendent.
The district’s name originates in 1876, when St. Louis city and St. Louis County officially split, and the community of Fee Fee was granted a post office. The government placed the new post office in the Patton General Store, and John R. A. Patton was named the new postmaster, thus the name of the community was changed to Pattonville. The store, owned by John Patton and his brother Elliot Patton, was on the same side as the present day Branneky True Value Store.
As the number of students who wished to attend high school continued to increase, the Pattonville school board concluded the district was being charged too much in high school tuition from other districts and sought to open the district’s first high school. In April 1934, voters approved a bond issue to build the district’s second school, Pattonville High School. Construction began in spring 1935 with support from government funds. The high school was scheduled to open in September 1935, but the building was not ready. As a result, the grade school reorganized to accommodate a small high school enrollment during the first semester of the 1935-1936 school year. High school students met in the basement, in the teachers’ room and in the principals’ office of the grade school. On March 17, 1936, eighth graders, freshmen, sophomores and juniors (approximately 76 students) began moving day. The students walked with their books and belongings under their arms to their new school. The new building contained four large classrooms, two on each floor, an office on the first floor, another small room on the second floor used as a typing room and a basement used as a large all-purpose room and furnace room. The hall was lined with student lockers. The restrooms were located down a concrete path in the backyard.
The original Pattonville High School when it was located on St. Charles Rock Road.
One of the first graduating classes of Pattonville High School, the Class of 1938.
With the basement of the Pattonville Grade School empty of high school students, a group of civic-minded women known as the Lindenwood Club offered to equip one of the basement rooms for a kindergarten. The offer was accepted, and a morning kindergarten class was started in 1936.
Pattonville High School’s first commencement exercises, held on June 18, 1937, were for two students, Marguerite Nunley and Irma Meuth. A January 1937 article in the Schola (name of the Pattonville High School newspaper in the 1930s and 40s) indicates that green and white were chosen by popular vote of the student body to be the official school colors of Pattonville High School. The school colors project took place under the supervision of the PHS Student Council. Students during this era also chose the alma mater song, “High on A Hilltop,” which to this day is still sung at every graduation ceremony.
Pattonville started its first transportation system in 1945 by purchasing a bus to transport students living two miles or more from school. Prior to this time, some students were transported by a district-contracted, privately owned station wagon, while others rode horses or walked to school.
In 1946, Pattonville High School became fully accredited by the North Central Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges, a designation it maintains today.
In 1947, the first organized lunch program appeared in Pattonville when the district acquired the mess hall and barracks of Camp Crowder, where Holman Middle School now stands. It was run by PTA members in a “make-do” fashion. Pattonville opened full-service kitchens in the 1950s when volunteer moms and students helped bake, cook and serve.
1950s: Pattonville gains accreditation and annexes four school districts
In the 1950s, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education began accrediting public school districts, and Pattonville received full accreditation, a status it maintains to this date.
The legislature passed the 1948 Consolidation Act in response to an increase of students in the state without a corresponding increase in state funding.
During the 1949-1950 school year, Penn and Bridgeton school districts were annexed into the Pattonville School District. One year later, in 1951, Pattonville again reorganized. Pattonville became part of the School District R-3 at a special election on Oct. 27, 1951. Junction and Mount Pleasant merged with Pattonville, and Pattonville officially became known as the R-3 District.
By 1956, Pattonville consisted of one high school and five elementary schools (Penn-Junction Elementary, Bridgeton Elementary, St. Ann Elementary, Mount Pleasant Elementary and Pattonville Grade School). The high school, located on St. Charles Rock Road, consisted of grades seven through 12. The elementary schools consisted of grades kindergarten through six.
1958: Pattonville’s name is modified
Pattonville’s name was changed from Pattonville Consolidated School District R-3, St. Louis County, to the Pattonville R-3 School District, St. Louis County.
1962: Pattonville merges with the Maryland Heights School District
In 1962, after being twice turned down by Maryland Heights citizens, voters elected to merge the Maryland Heights School District with Pattonville. The Maryland Heights High School, located at 115 Harding, became the Pattonville Administration Building. The Maryland Heights School District was founded as Rural District 24 in 1924 and was reorganized as a town district. When it merged with Pattonville, the district consisted of Maryland Heights High School, Remington Elementary and Carver Elementary for Negroes. Carver was discontinued and Remington Elementary remained an elementary school. The high school students began attending Pattonville High School.
Maryland Heights High School, located at 115 Harding, became the Pattonville Administration Building.
1994: Pattonville establishes current mission/vision statement
On Dec. 13, 1994, the Pattonville Board of Education approved its current mission and vision statement.
2001-2012: Pattonville recognized for academic performance
Pattonville earned Missouri’s Distinction in Performance Award the first year it was bestowed upon Missouri school districts. The award recognized school districts for high performance on multiple measures of academic achievement. Until the recognition was discontinued, Pattonville earned the award every year it was awarded. Pattonville was also the most diverse school district in Missouri to achieve the honor every year.
2013-Present: Pattonville consistently recognized nationally
The Pattonville School District began to consistently receive local, state and national recognition for its academic achievement, including U.S. News and World Report’s Best High Schools lists, Niche.com’s best school districts and schools in America, St. Louis-Post-Dispatch Top Workplaces, Missouri Gold Star and National Blue Ribbon Schools and more. Pattonville’s student population has been touted as one of the most diverse in Missouri and the U.S. and reflects the nation's global society, representing dozens of different countries and languages. View a list of Points of Pride.
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