9623 Saint Charles Rock Road
Breckenridge Hills, Missouri 63114

CHAPTER FOUR - Schools

Schools:   In 1846 the first school of the present day Ritenour School District was erected. White children of school age who wanted to attend public school would have been found in this building known as the "Buck Schoolhouse", which was located on Woodson Road near Lackland Road. Members of the black community were not allowed to be educated until after the Civil War. In 1867, a school for the black children was started at a site on Lackland Road and Sims Avenue.   The white children attended the various schools near their homes which were erected over the years. DeHart School which opened in 1948 was the only elementary school within the actual boundaries of the City of Breckenridge Hills. (It stood on the corner of Saint Charles Rock Road and Wismer Road and was replaced by a bank.) Elmwood School replaced the original black school and served as an elementary educational facility for black children until the integration of the public schools.   Ritenour High School which opened in the fall of 1950 also stands within the City of Breckenridge Hills School. (As part of their routine patrol work, two officers of the Breckenridge Hills Police Department are assigned at the High School during regular school hours. With an enrollment well over a thousand students, Ritenour High School becomes a small city within a city.)   Although the area did not require a great many schools for its population, certainly the citizens of Breckenridge Hills were active in the Ritenour educational system. Sergeant Washington Reed served as a teacher of the black school, and J. P. Breckenridge was clerk of the District during the years 1884 and 1893. The above ledger copies show the money allocated for teaching from 1878 through 1893.

Onto CHAPTER FIVE - Incorporation!