Unbeknownst to most people, the Francis Howell School District has a deep stake in the history of St. Charles County. It is easy to dismiss the history of the school district as unimportant since, well, it is a figment of the past. However, understanding the history of the district, the roots, helps us not only learn about the past, but create a better future. St. Charles County Parks Historian Ben Gall mentions just how the society back then can be related to society today.
“Learning the history of the land and people behind [the] school district helps [people] understand the factors at play in nineteenth century Missouri society and find parallels to events happening in our world today,” Gall commented. “It helps [people] remember that things don’t just happen, but there’s a series of events that take place. Being able to recognize patterns and themes like these can help [people] become more engaged with [their] community.”
Additionally, former Francis Howell School District superintendent, principal, Lindenwood Professor, and author, Dr. Daniel T. Brown, Phd., commented on how the history of the district can teach us specific lessons.
“The story of [Francis Howell Central], and [the] district, its brick and mortar, its teachers and activities is one [students and faculty] can understand and appreciate because [they] are an integral part of it for a time,” Dr. Brown said. “If [they] can value [their] school’s persistence as it has pertained to [them], [they] have learned a valuable life lesson. Only those who understand persistence and persist, achieve at a high level.”
If one were to go back to St. Charles county in the beginning of the nineteenth century, they would see a name that sounds vaguely familiar: Howell. The Howells came to St. Charles in the 1790s, back when St. Charles wasn’t even Saint Charles, but San Carlos del Misuri, named after San Carlos Borromeo whom the first church of the area was dedicated to after the Spanish acquisition. Families came to this territory in search of land because at that time land was equated to money. The land along the Missouri River was perfect for their needs seeing as it was highly fertile which made farming more bountiful. In addition, the Spanish, who owned the area of the Louisiana Territory that would one day include St. Charles, told the Lieutenant Governor in St. Louis to issue land grants to settlers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a way to generate tax revenue and emphasize dominance over the land.
It is important to note; however, that the Howells were not the first settlers in the area. Gall describes how they, as well as others, were not even the first Europeans to settle along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
“We know that the... Howells were not the first people or first Europeans to settle in the St. Charles County area. [Native American] settlements can be traced to pre-Columbian times, and the French begin settling this region in the 1680s,” Gall said. “However, the arrival of Anglo-European families paved the way for other settlers in the years immediately following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.”
The Howells were prevalent members of society back in the beginnings of the county. In the early years, they even lived alongside another prevalent Anglo-European family, otherwise known as the Boones. The family of the infamous Daniel Boone moved into the St. Charles area around the same time as the Howells. Thus, there are several instances where the families interacted with each other. An example of this occurred in 1808 when Newton Howell accompanied Nathan Boone and Captain William Clark to Fort Osage in Jackson County, Missouri.
In 1821, the Howell family had convinced Lewis Howell to open a one-room private school. Eventually, in 1881, Hiram Beverly Castlio founded the Howell Institute in Howell’s Prairie, Missouri, a spot that currently houses the August A. Busch Memorial Conservation Area and Francis Howell High School. The school had been built to fulfill the wishes of Francis Howell Jr., who had left the funding in his will for a school that provided higher education. The Howell Institute taught basic subjects such as history, arithmetic, spelling, reading and writing in order to prepare pupils for any higher education they may have wished to pursue.
The Howell Institute continued to educate students until 1915 when it was renamed to Francis Howell High School. This school continued to house all high school students for the district until 1986 when Francis Howell North High School was opened in the northern part of the district to accommodate the increase in students due to the Baby Boom.
Between the time the Howell Institute was renamed to when Francis Howell North High School was opened, the face of the district changed quite a bit.
During World War 2 the District faced a situation which redefined the layout and distribution of the schools forever. At that point in time, the school consisted of five one-room schools, the one high school and a soon-to-be-completed four-room schoolhouse meant to replace the one-room schools. One day, on Oct. 11, 1940, the majority of the district’s attendance area was taken over by the Federal Government in order to make way for the Weldon Spring Ordnance Works, an ammunition plant. Dr. Brown discussed how this changed the district forever.
“The district lost eighty percent of its attendance area and had only one remaining school, the Weldon Spring School,” Dr. Brown stated. “The district, under the leadership of C. Fred Hollenbeck, immediately began a campaign to expand along Highway 94 towards St. Charles. By January 6, 1941, six one-room school districts voted to annex themselves to the district, and the district was saved.”
The district continued to stay relatively the same after the opening of Francis Howell North High School until a continued growth in student population forced the district to open another high school, Francis Howell Central High School, in 1997. The first two classes at Francis Howell Central High School consisted of high school sophomores and juniors from the other previous high schools. One of these students was current Francis Howell Central social studies teacher, Mr. Nick Beckmann, who was a sophomore at the time of the school’s opening. Mr. Beckmann recalls visiting the school as an adolescent prior to its opening.
Another current staff member, College and Career Counselor Mrs. Michelle Breuer, started at Francis Howell Central its opening year as a math teacher after previously teaching at Francis Howell North High School. Mrs. Breuer too reflects on her thoughts when the school opened.
The first year Francis Howell Central High School was opened, the majority of the school was not finished and the community within the school was fairly small; however, memories were made that first year due to the closeness of all involved have withstood the test of time. Mr. Beckmann looks back on memories of the community itself and how they worked together to adjust to their new surroundings.
“I mean just the connections you make, the teachers you have, the lifelong friends, you know, it was unique because it was a small environment, so you knew a lot of different people,” Mr. Beckmann stated. “There were no real big cliques or anything like that and everybody got along. It was really fun.”
Mrs. Breuer remembers how some of the other faculty used their humor to try and make everyone feel a bit more comfortable.
“Mr. Whalen, [Mr. Clayton], and Bill Myers, they were hilarious teachers and I think that when we would get together as a faculty that’s what I remember,” Mrs. Breuer said. “I remember laughter and having fun and… Anytime they had speeches or whatever, even for the kids or the pep assemblies, they would be there and it was just funny. It was just kind of a fun pep assembly… it relieved some of the newness. We needed that.”
Since that year so long ago, Francis Howell Central High School has gone on to continue to grow and produce notable students such as professional football player Pierre Desir and the Finance Director for Republican National Committee, Cara Mason.
The Francis Howell School District's history provides life lessons for those who wish to learn it. From the beginning, for instance, perseverance has been a common theme as the district has faced challenge after challenge, overcoming them every time. Dr. Brown describes how one can apply this to their own life.
“We all need to understand that important achievements, whether personal or institutional, require a lot of effort over a long period of time, what I call ‘wise persistence,’” Dr. Brown mentioned. “Whether we are to be an athlete, an artist, a businessman, a mother or a voter, we must learn, and we must persist in our efforts to learn, achieve, perform, or create.”
History creates the foundation for the identities of those who come later. By choosing to take inspiration from those who built the district, current students and faculty can go on to produce great achievements once they leave the classroom.
All photos courtesy of Dr. Daniel T. Brown, PhD. unless otherwise noted.
All yearbook photos courtesy of the Central Odyssey 1997-1998 and 2007-2008 staffs respectively.
Other Sources:
https://genealogytrails.com/mo/stcharles/hist_forts.htm
https://www.stpetersmo.net/about-st-peters.aspx
https://www.discoverstcharles.com/about/history/
https://www.mylibrary.org/local-history-timeline
Brown, Daniel T., and Warlene Reed. Small Glories: a Memoir of Southern St. Charles County and the Formation of the Francis Howell School District. Howell Foundation, 2003.