Fulton Public School – Center Street
Even before the city of Fulton was incorporated in March 1859, education had come to play an important role in the life of the community. In 1851, the Missouri General Assembly voted to establish a school for the deaf in Fulton. That same year, Fulton College (now Westminster College) welcomed its first students in October. The Fulton Female Academy (a forerunner of the Synodical College) had opened the previous year and, according to Dr. William Parrish’s history of Westminster, a high school had been in operation for several years. Finally, in 1890 the Christian Church moved its Orphan School (later to become William Woods University) to Fulton.
The first public school opened in 1868. Classes were held in the Baptist Church, awaiting the completion of West School on the corner of 7th Street and Westminster Avenue, the present site of the National Churchill Museum. In the spring of 1890, the first two public school graduates received their high school diplomas.
Local architect M. F. Bell designed and supervised the construction of the Fulton school building featured on this postcard. It served as the community’s high school from January 1917 until the fall of 1938 when grades 9 through 12 moved to the new high school on 10th Street. Although its days as a high school had ended, the building remained part of the public-school system until May 1988. In the intervening years, it was known first as East School and then Center School, opening its doors to ever-changing configurations of grade levels from elementary through junior high. One Fulton resident commented that a cousin lived near the school, but never attended classes there because the grade levels seemed to vary from year to year.
Today the exterior of the building still resembles the postcard quite closely, but the interior is greatly changed. After the school district sold the building, it was converted to apartments.
If you are one of these students, we hope this post brings back pleasant memories, although that may not always be the case. We found two examples of this postcard, the one pictured here and another where the words “High School” in the upper left-hand corner have been crossed out and replaced by the handwritten “Torture Chamber.”