Osage Hills School

Built in 1938 with around fifty percent of funding from the federal government, the Osage Hills School operated until the 1960s. The school was part of the New Deal program at a time when Osage Hills was transforming from a community catering to saloons into a family-friendly community and reflected Kirkwood's desire to expand as a municipality and a school district. The former school was later used as a school board office followed by a daycare, and has most recently been home to a church. Despite each transition, most of the original architecture remains intact. 

As St. Louis suffered from urban decline, pollution, overcrowding, an 1849 fire, and cholera outbreaks (1848 and 1851 - 1853) that killed nearly a tenth of St. Louis' residents, those with the financial means moved to suburban communities. Suburbs like Kirkwood offered homes with spacious lots, park space, and railway access to St. Louis. Indeed, Kirkwood, the first planned suburb west of the Mississippi River, owes its name to James Pugh Kirkwood, engineer and surveyor for the Pacific Railroad, which first came through town during the early 1850s. A meeting to discuss building Kirkwood's first school transpired at the town's first train depot with a school district, and plans for a public school emerged shortly after the end of the Civil War. 

Meanwhile, Meramec Highlands and Osage Hills, now part of Kirkwood, developed during the early 1890s when Marcus Bernheimer, a St. Louis entrepreneur, formed the Sunset Hills Electric Light, Water, and Power Company in conjunction with a new health spa he was opening called the Meramec Highlands, located southwest of the Kirkwood city (where the historic Osage Hills School now stands). Resorts and spas arose during the end of the nineteenth century as wealthy families sought respite from the urban ills. Bernheimer found a thirty-eight-acre lot overlooking the Meramec River along the United Railway, fifteen miles from downtown St. Louis. The location offered affluent visitors a chance to enjoy river beaches and a "healthy mineral spring," a sulfur spring producing 60,000 gallons of water daily. In 1894, Bernheimer opened a hotel with 125 rooms and fifteen guest cottages, and the resort also included its own train station, where nine trains per day took passengers back and forth between the resort and St. Louis. 

As the spa grew, the surrounding community expanded to include more residents, stores, and drinking establishments, much to the chagrin of the wealthy. At the time, the surrounding Highlands town allowed liquor sales and saloons, while neighboring Kirkwood was a dry town. Thus, by 1905, the Highlands town began to draw rowdy, "lower-class" crowds viewed by the affluent as less favorable; Meramec Highlands resort began to lose its allure. By 1925, Bernheimer's heirs sold five hundred acres, including the Meramec Highlands. The new owners planned a new country club and an exclusive residential development around the streets developed by Bernheimer. The new owners held a contest to name the new community; a teacher at Roosevelt High School and a Kirkwood resident suggested Osage Hills. The new Osage Hills community expanded quickly, and in 1927, Kirkwood annexed the area, although it did not include the Meramec Highlands School District until 1932. 

The transition from Meramec Highlands to Osage Hills included a change from a town catering to a rough-and-tumble crowd to more of a family-friendly environment. Kirkwood's annexation of the town and the school district only cemented that transformation. However, efforts to replace older schools with newer, modernized buildings proved challenging during the 1930s because of the economic strains of the Great Depression. But, federal funds tied to the New Deal program allowed the Kirkwood School District to move forward with building the Osage Hills School. The federal government paid for forty-five percent of the school, which opened in 1938 (for the 1938 - 39 school year). 

The Osage Hills School sat on twelve acres of land with a building consisting of only four classrooms serving kindergarten through second grade. The growing student population pushed the Kirkwood School District to fund additions to the school. In 1944, Osage Hills expanded with two new classrooms, which allowed the school to teach kindergarten through sixth grade. The school received one additional classroom in 1951. However, student enrollment declined significantly by the late 1960s, leading to the school's closure. 

After the 1960s, the school building functioned as the Kirkwood School Board office center, a daycare center, and most recently, a church. 

Baxter, Karen Bode and Timothy P. Maloney. "Registration Form: Osage Hills School." National Register of Historic Places. mostateparks.com. 2007. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/Osage%20Hills%20School.pdf.

Harris, Marty. "Former Osage School Has Second Life As A Church." Webster-Kirkwood Times. June 23, 2016. https://www.timesnewspapers.com/webster-kirkwoodtimes/features/former-osage-school-has-second-life-as-a-church/article_23bd3c8d-be3e-5ecd-bd1f-07c46575fc9e.html.

Muller, Peter O. "The Evolution of American Suburbs: A Geographical Interpretation." Urbanism Past & Present, no. 4 (1977): 1–10. 

"Osage Hills School (Former) – Kirkwood, MO." The Living New Deal. Accessed May 24, 2023. https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/osage-hills-school-kirkwood-mo/. 

Stockmann, Linda. "Certified Local Government Program Historic Inventory - Phase 1 Survey, Kirkwood, Missouri." Kirkwood Landmarks Commission. mostateparks.com. 1986. https://mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/Kirkwood%20PI%20Report.pdf. 

Stockman, Linda; Peon K. Wolfenbarqer; and Debbie Sheals. "Multiple Property Documentation Form: Historic Resources of Kirkwood, Missouri." National Register of Historic Places. mostateparks.com. 2002. https://www.mostateparks.com/sites/mostateparks/files/HistoricResources-Kirkwood.pdf.