The Frenchburg School, Menifee County, Kentucky

A recent story on public radio about “unschooling” sent my thoughts ranging far and wide about the history of public education in Kentucky. A proponent of unschooling made the allusion that allowing children to learn how they wished, outside of formal education, has historic precedent – that “this is how young people learned well before there was an institution of compulsory education or brick and mortar spaces.”

Perhaps I misunderstood the comment, but before a reliable public school system existed in most of this country (looking back to the 19th century), the only people who had a chance to study a wide range of academic subjects (outside of a trade, or life skills, both of which are extraordinarily important), were typically white children from wealthy families. And that meant a large percentage of the population had very little access to any sort of schooling.

Rural Kentucky struggled historically to provide consistent education to its residents, and in some places, other groups stepped in to to fill the gaps. One such example is the  Presbyterian Church, which brought schools and medical facilities to many communities in Appalachia.

Haunting images of the Frenchburg School in Frenchburg, Menifee County, have been captured by countless photographers, to feed an audience captivated by abandoned spaces and spooky buildings. I appreciate the photo documentation of sites dedicated to abandoned places, but I wonder how much of the story of the crumbling buildings and their role in the community is actually conveyed?*

Prior to 1908, most children in Kentucky finished their formal schooling at the 8th grade (if they were lucky) – public high schools weren’t mandated in the Commonwealth until that year.

Menifee County was unable to fund a public high school, and the local school system only operated six months of the year. Most students in the county were only able to attend school through the fifth grade.

In 1908 the Presbyterian Church decided to oversee the establishment of a church and school in the county seat town of Frenchburg. Residents of Menifee County  donated not just money, but considerable labor to making the school a reality.

This was not the first time the denomination’s mission work created an educational institution- by 1900, over 37 Presbyterian-founded schools served over 3,000 students in Appalachia.** The first high school class of Frenchburg School (known in the beginning as “Frenchburg College”) graduated in 1914.

The Frenchburg School was a boarding school, with dormitories for both girls and boys. Until 1929, boys occupied one floor of the 1917 building, while the girls lived on a separate floor.

A monthly newspaper produced by the school, The Frenchburg Reporter, provides a glimpse into the life of the school, where students carried out daily chores in addition to school and church – not unlike the tuition free policy at Berea College.* In the February 1940 issue, the Dean of Boys painted this picture of the campus and the farm owned by the school:

All who come to visit the school are struck by its beautiful location just on the edge of the village. Located just a half-mile up the highway is the farm with its white cottage, barns and other buildings, and just adjacent to this is the Boys Dormitory. Strangers passing by would likely think it just a large farmhouse unless they happened by about six-fifteen in the morning when 22 boys are leaving for breakfast or about eight-fifteen at night when they are returning from study in the library. 

It wasn’t just the school, though, but the medical facilities made possible by the Presbyterian Church and donors. The Jane Cook Hospital opened on the campus in 1915, and though small, with only 10 beds and one operating rooms, it was the only hospital at the time between Lexington and Ashland.

The first hospital  building was destroyed by fire in 1940, by a fire of “unknown origin” that began in a basement room used for storage. The Frenchburg Reporter, in relaying the story of the fire, stressed the urgent need of a hospital in the area. Not only was the nearest hospital 20 miles away in Mt. Sterling, but many residents of Menifee County couldn’t afford the cost of a “modern and self-supporting hospital.” Affordable and accessible healthcare at the time, much like today, was tenuous.

The hospital was rebuilt in 1941. The smaller of the two hospital buildings appears to be still in use as the Mountain Ministries Artisan Center and the Menifee County Veterans Center (building on right in above photo).

The Frenchburg School closed in 1957, and the hospital shuttered its doors ten years later.

The main buildings of the campus – all built prior to 1921- are brick, and classically inspired. I’m not sure who the architect may have been – if someone local was employed, or if the Presbyterian Church had their own in-house designer. Only one of the three is now in use –  the 1921 Teachers Residence (photo below) appears to be apartments.

Broken windows, collapsing roofs, and the ever constant siege of water has caused great harm to the School Building and Girls Dormitory. I took these photos in 2015, and as I drove slowly behind the main buildings, I imagined how different the outcome could have been.***

The Frenchburg School was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in the late 1970s, and if someone with imagination and spirit had taken on the project – an amazing adaptive reuse could have occurred. Empty buildings slowly decaying would have been used, contributing to the local tax base and perhaps drawing tourists to Menifee County.

The tourism industry in Kentucky has changed a great deal since the 1970s. The hills surrounding Frenchburg may have been used to entice hikers, who could have then stayed in the refurbished school buildings. The school buildings did serve as a retirement/nursing home, beginning in the late 1950s after the school closed. At some point, perhaps in the 1980s, the campus was owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and utilized as a juvenile rehabilitation center.

I’m afraid that there is very little razzle dazzle zip boom ba left for the historic Frenchburg School campus – but for a while longer at least, memories of the school should continue to live with its former students.

 

 

 

*There is a wonderful collection about the Frenchburg Schoolcompiled by William T. Tolliver, Jr. and Emma Lee Tolliver in 2012 on file at the Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort, Kentucky.

**Banker, Mark T. Missionaries and Mountain Peoples: Presbyterian Responses to Southern Appalachia& Hispanic New Mexico. Paper presented at the Appalachian Studies Conference, March 1993.

***I have a vague memory of a fire taking place on the campus in the ensuing years since I photographed the buildings, but I was unable to find a secondary source confirming this fact.