Restoring African Schoolhouse 4

The crew at Faust Park continued its work to reconstruct African Schoolhouse #4. The school was relocated to the park in 2021 after it was donated to St. Louis County.

Built in 1894, the one-room schoolhouse is the oldest Black schoolhouse in the County. Workers used tools from past eras to make replacement logs for the schoolhouse.

In July, workers placed the first log into the school’s new home alongside Myles Hodges, grandson of Lucille Johnson, who attended the school in 1931. Once the logs were put in place, crews began chinking, a centuries old process that places scraps of wood in between the larger logs.