Historic Frank P. Blair School, St. Louis, Missouri.Photo byLittleT889, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The historic Frank P. Blair School is at 2707 Rauscherbach in St. Louis, Missouri. On February 10, 1983, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Today, the building is known as Archway Commons Apartments. The building was repurposed into one and two-bedroom units.

About the school

The Frank P. Blair School is over 100 years old. The school was constructed in three stages which began in 1882 with additions in 1888 and 1894. It was designed by School Board Architect, H. William Kirchner. It was one of Kirchner's first designs.

The Frank P. Blair School and Kindergarten complex is important because of its association with education, architecture, and the assimilation of the large German population in St. Louis. The post-Civil War educational policies were designed to attract the German population to the public school system.

The school was named after Francis Preston Blair, Jr. (1821-1875), a highly acclaimed and popular political figure who served in the Mexican-American War and American Civil War.

Gen. Francis Preston Blair, Jr.Photo byU.S. Civil war photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Blair was also a United States Senator, Congressman, and Union Major General during the Civil War. He was active in preventing Missouri from being absorbed into the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War.

In 1880, half of the city's twenty-eight Wards were represented on the St. Louis Board of Education by first and second generation Germans. (Source.)

When the school building was completed, there was cause for celebration because it was a remarkable school building in the city. When Blair opened in 1882, it was 50% German or German American and it included German language instruction. German classes attracted many of the German population.

When the large site for the school building was chosen, it was also in case more room was needed for expansion. Also sitting at the edge of a park, it's a reminder of how prominent architect and Commissioner of School Buildings, William B. Ittner, had designed schools that were set back on lawns which were like you'd see in a park.

Gradually, the German population was first replaced by Eastern Europeans followed by African Americans and poor white Americans. By the early 1970s, according to city directories, many houses were vacant. St. Louis Park Place experienced "dramatic and devastating demolition" at its borders.

In 1981, the School Board closed Blair School due to enrollment decline. The school was acquired by developers, McCormack, Baron & Associates (now McCormack Baron Salazar) who already had success with adaptive reuse projects.

In April 2014, the Blair School Apartments were acquired by Evergreen Partners. In February 2015, Evergreen performed significant renovations to the property. The units were modernized and major systems were replaced. It's now known as Archway Commons Apartments.

Another building was saved.

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