Carondelet Historic Center Fact Sheet

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	Carondelet Historic Center DESCRIPTION: The Carondelet Historic Center, home of the Carondelet Historical Society, is housed in the former Des Peres School where St. Louisan Susan Blow conducted the first publicly funded, continuously operating kindergarten in the United States in 1873. The Center is a museum that preserves the history of the area of St. Louis known as Carondelet and the memory of Blow who studied with German educator Friedrich Froebel, considered the father of the kindergarten movement in Europe. The front four rooms, including the one where Blow conducted the first kindergarten class, are part of the original building. As the Carondelet area grew and there was need for a bigger school, additional rooms were added at the rear of the structure. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places. ADDRESS: 6303 Michigan Ave., St. Louis, MO 63111 LOCATION: South St. Louis PHONE NUMBER: 314-481-6303 GETTING THERE: From downtown, take I-55 South to Exit 202C (Loughborough). Turn left on Loughborough and follow it for four blocks to Michigan Avenue. Turn left on Michigan and follow it for five blocks. The Carondelet Historic Center is on the left. HOURS: Tues., Wed., Fri., 9:30-noon; Sat., 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m. ADMISSION: $2, adults; 12 and under, $1. School tours are free. HIGHLIGHTS: In the lobby are two lithographs of Carondelet from the mid-1850's and from 1860 and a commemorative quilt celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Carondelet Historical Society. The Kindergarten Room, set up the way it looked in the 1870's, preserves Susan Blow's original kindergarten classroom. The woodwork in the room is original but the tables and benches are replicas. The room contains the Froebel blocks and colored balls children played with in early kindergartens, and many artifacts from those days, including projects produced by early kindergarteners, are on display. Also on display are posters depicting the life and work of Susan Blow and a diorama of Blow's kindergarten which was made in 1976 for the United States Bicentennial year celebration. The Museum Room commemorates other Carondelet area schools and also preserves items which belonged to Susan Blow. Among the items on display are Blow's diaries, workbooks made by apprentice teachers and a photo album with pictures of kindergarten activities taken in 1904, the year of the St. Louis World's Fair. Of special note are the stained glass windows at the far end of the room depicting Friedrich Froebel and Susan Blow. The windows, made by the Emil Frei Stained Glass Co. of St. Louis, were salvaged from nearby Shepard School. The Froebel window depicts a lunette of a cylinder, a cube and a ball signifying his scientific background. The same icon is also on the monument on his grave in Germany. The Wall of Honor, an ongoing exhibit, features photos of the men and women of Carondelet who served in the armed services from the Civil War through the Gulf War. The exhibit includes more than 300 studio photos, ship board snap shots and photos of young men on leave standing on the porch steps of their Carondelet flats. In an ongoing World War II project, the Historical Society is documenting how World War II affected the Carondelet community. Volunteers are documenting both overseas and home side World War II experiences and collecting memorabilia. Upstairs meeting rooms feature mementoes from Carondelet churches; a "Chronology of Carondelet;" water color paintings of buildings in the area by local artist Hazel Lee, paintings by the late Victor Kunz, a local architect/artist; mementoes of Carondelet businesses and a display tracing the history of the camera. A "street of stores" called "Memory Lane" features storefront-like exhibits. "Larry's Hardware Store" features old tools, antique typewriters, adding machines and check-writing machines as well as "tools" for the housewife such as curtain stretchers, carpet beaters, washtubs and hand wringers. The "Shop of Nostalgia" features christening clothes, confirmation and wedding dresses and toys from the late 1880's and the first half of the 20th century. The Wernet-Yaeger Market is a recreated butcher shop complete with hanging sausages and an early 20th century market with a rolling ladder. Also on display are antique kitchen items. In the Carondelet Heritage Room, visitors can see furniture and home décor from the 19th century and early 20th century. A second floor gallery is dedicated to memorabilia from Cleveland High School, the public high school that served the Carondelet area. The Center's library features local newspapers and newsletters, city directories and cemetery and other records on microfilm or microfiche, children's books prior to 1940 and Cleveland High School yearbooks dating back to 1916. WHAT'S FUN FOR KIDS: Children will enjoy seeing the kindergarten room as it was during the 1870's and the old toys in Memory Lane exhibit upstairs. ANNUAL SPECIAL EVENTS: Each year several fundraisers, including a quilt show, are held at the Center. HISTORY: In 1767, three years after Pierre Laclede founded the trading post along the Mississippi River he called St. Louis, Clement Delor de Treget, another Frenchman, came up the river from Ste. Genevieve and built a stone house for himself and his family in a small valley along the river. Eventually, other Frenchmen and Creoles settled nearby. Although he was French by birth, Delor was somehow connected with the Spanish government which controlled the area at the time. He may have been a representative of the Spanish government because he assigned town lots to settlers, established common fields and jointly owned and farmed lands. In the French tradition, Delor set aside a space in his settlement for a church and a cemetery but it was not in the usual French design with the church facing a public square in the center of town. Instead, the spot he chose for the church overlooked the valley. Before long, the settlement was an agricultural outpost that supplied St. Louis. Locals called the small settlement "Delor's Village," but in 1794, Delor officially named his village Carondelet after Baron Francois Louis Hector de Carondelet, the French-born Governor General of New Orleans and the highest authority of the Spanish administration in the Louisiana Territory. By the official Spanish census of 1796, a total of 181 people lived in Carondelet but by the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804, Carondelet had some 250 residents living in 50 houses. Carondelet was chartered as a city in 1851. When the Civil War broke out 10 years later, Carondelet residents joined the ranks on both sides. In 1870, the city of St. Louis annexed Carondelet, and the St. Louis Board of Education became in charge of the area's schools. To house the children of Carondelet, Carondelet School was built in 1871 and Des Peres School was built in 1873. Both were designed by German-American architect Frederick Raeder. For many years, Carondelet was nicknamed "Vide Poche" or "Empty Pocket." The source of the nickname is obscure. Some say it was because Carondelet inhabitants were not very ambitious, others say it was coined by more affluent St. Louisans who looked down on residents of the settlement to their south and at least one historian says it is derived from the fact that the Creoles of Carondelet were so skilled at gambling, they sent visiting St. Louisan home with "empty pockets." Des Peres School originally had only four rooms-two upstairs and two downstairs-but by the mid-1890's the area's population was growing rapidly and four more rooms were added to the building. When the school opened in 1873, Susan Blow, a local woman who had studied with Friedrich Froebel who had started the kindergarten movement in Germany, offered to conduct a kindergarten class on the site. Blow conducted St. Louis' first public kindergarten there and later trained teachers who took the program to other schools in the St. Louis system. Some of those teachers went on to establish kindergarten programs in cities across the country. The Board of Education continued to operate the school until 1935 when it was closed. The building remained closed until the late 1947 when the Board of Education sold the building to Roy Tarter who operated it as a meeting hall and a restaurant he called the "Kindergarten Grill." The building was later sold to the Cook Family, owners of Cook's Market, who used the building for office and storage space. A market was later added to the site. In 1980, when the Cooks retired and closed the building, the Family Care Center of Carondelet bought it and operated a clinic there for a short time. In 1981, the center sold the Des Peres School building to the Carondelet Historical Society and Susan Blow Foundation. The Society and the Foundation have been restoring the building ever since, preserving the memory of Blow's contributions and adding to the museum it created to preserve the history of Carondelet. Today the Carondelet neighborhood, most of which is on the bluffs high above the Mississippi River, is an eclectic mix of architecture and includes buildings from before the Civil War, the mid 1870's and the 1890's and, of course, from more recent years. The Carondelet Public Library at 6800 Michigan Ave. is a Carnegie library built in 1908. WHAT'S COMING UP: Additional exhibits are being planned at the Center. HANDICAPPED ACCESS: The Carondelet Historic Center is not handicapped accessible. WHERE TO GET LUNCH: The historic Soulard Neighborhood, a few miles north, has a variety of restaurants. WHAT'S NEARBY: Nearby are the historic Soulard Neighborhood, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, the historic DeMenil House and the Cherokee Street Antique District. PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTACT: Ron Bolte, president of the Carondelet Historical Society, 314-481-6303
	Readers should call 1-800-916-0040 to request a free copy of the Official St. Louis Visitor Guide or point, click and explore St. Louis at www.explorestlouis.com