Alves Street School was built in 1899 and was located at 424 S Alves Street. It was demolished in 1967. Attendance in 1912 reached 507 students.
Frank Boyett: Alves Street School never got much attention
Alves Street School at 424 S. Alves has never gotten the attention it deserves.
It’s always been overshadowed by Douglass High School, as well as its elementary brother, Eighth Street School. And that’s not counting the First Street School, which was Henderson’s first school for black schoolchildren when it opened Sept. 2, 1872, at 632 First St.
Well, it was sort of the first. The Notable Kentucky African Americans Database at the University of Kentucky says that between 1866 and 1870 the U.S. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands operated a school here for ex-slaves, but “the teachers were threatened and run out of town.”
The Alves Street School was built in 1899 and its top floor was home to Douglass High School from 1905 to 1924. First Street was dividing line between it and Eighth Street School for grade school students. Eighth Street School at 800 N. Elm St., by the way, didn’t open until 1902.
Information about the Alves school is a little hard to come by. I had to dig to get enough to fill out a column. What prompted me to choose it as this week’s topic is a photograph that appeared in The Gleaner Aug. 19, 1967, which showed the school being demolished.
“The large eight-room brick structure, with spacious hallways, was abandoned” at the end of the 1964-65 school year as integration was fully implemented.
“The property was purchased by Russell Wilson, whose salvage crews are now razing it.” Wilson said he intended to sell the lot, which measured 260 by 300 feet.
Microfilm of newspaper coverage of the beginnings of Alves Street School does not exist, but I was lucky to find in the files of the Henderson County Public Library a column by Francele Armstrong in The Gleaner of June 29, 1960. The column is based on a copy of the May 2, 1899, Henderson Journal, which Mrs. Fred Paff provided.
The city school board awarded a contract worth $9,980 to build the school, and E.S. Trible was hired for $150 as construction manager to oversee the job, according to Armstrong’s account of the Journal article.
“There was a hassle at the meeting because the members had learned that the board did not own the plans of the building just because they paid a fee of $150 for the construction plans or blueprint copies. They wished to have the originals so they might build another school from the same plans but apparently the law had them and they couldn’t do it.”
In parentheses she added, “Those who now attend this Alves Street School, which is 60 years old, may utter a prayer of thanks that no other schools were built from the plans!”
Between 1872 and 1874 the First Street School had a white board of trustees and principal. The first black principal of First Street School was John K. Mason of Louisville. Hugh V. Brown of Goldsboro, North Carolina, in a letter to the editor published in The Gleaner May 5, 1957, described him as “tall, stately, goateed.”
Brown’s letter was in response to a series of Gleaner articles by Alice Swann published for three Sundays beginning April 14, 1957. Brown felt that her account, although noteworthy, had neglected to give proper credit to some of the county’s black educators.
“Nor could the history be complete without a mention of (Henderson Francis Jones, better known as Hence) who served for more than 20 years and died about a year ago.”
Mason was the first principal of Alves Street School when it replaced First Street School and would have been the first principal of Douglass High School when it moved to the top floor of the Alves school in 1905 but he died in 1903. That’s probably why Jones was the first principal of Douglass High School and remained in that position until 1922.
The high school students remained at Alves Street School until 1924, when they moved into a building at Martin Luther King and Alvasia streets. The building that most people think of as Douglass High School wasn’t erected at Clay and Alvasia until 1932. It was razed in 1987.
As Armstrong’s comments in her 1960 column made clear, the Alves Street building had problems. And they had grown serious as early as 1941. A survey of local schools, instigated by the League of Women Voters, showed stark deficiencies system-wide.
The report, which was published in The Gleaner March 14, 1941, recommended closing Eighth Street School and transferring the pupils to Alves Street School. No word on how that might cause overcrowding; the report said retaining two of the Eighth Street teachers would be sufficient.
But Alves Street School was “obsolete” and had problems, also. “The Alves Street School should be renovated (with the addition of a staircase for safety reasons) and the old toilet removed in favor of modern sanitary plumbing.” Is it just me, or does that sound like they were still using outhouses in 1941?
A later story about Alves Street School, one that appeared less than two years before it closed, was written by Judy Jenkins and The Gleaner published it Nov. 23, 1963. Brisco Houston was the principal at that time (and probably the school’s last one) and he emphasized “a fundamental program, free of educational frills.”
The school had “a sound program” of science, math, history, geography, spelling and English. It had a hardworking PTA that provided library improvements, a lunchroom program, and encouraged athletics by buying uniforms for the basketball and football teams.
“The faculty of eight works closely with the students and encourages them to work for the school by selling candy to buy needed equipment or materials.”
The faculty was incorporated into the city school system after full integration; only janitor McLemon Lewis lost his job.
Integration began locally in 1956 and by 1965 Douglass, Alves and a county school for blacks at Corydon were the only non-integrated schools locally. May 17 that year was their last day of classes forever. The federal government had made it clear that no federal funds would be forthcoming unless local schools fully integrated.
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Frank Boyett: Alves Street School never got much attention
