Howard School (Warrensburg, Missouri)
The Howard School was built in 1888. It was closed in 1955. The building sat on Culton Street in Warrensburg, Missouri. The school was officially entered in the National Register of Historic Places on February 14, 2002. History The Howard School had its beginning in 1867, when Cynthia Ann Reed Briggs and the Rev. M. Henry Smith from the American Missionary Association purchased a Lot 14 in Rentch's Addition in Warrensburg for the sum of $100.23. Funding for this lot and subsequent school building was accomplished with African American assistance alone. The new one-room, 32'x24' frame building cost $1,001.90 and when half-completed, accepted assistance from the Freedmen's Bureau in the amount of $800 to finish the structure. Grateful for the assistance, the school's sponsors decided to call it Howard School, in honor of General Oliver O. Howard, Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. The Howard School was the newly established Warrensburg School District's first school building, opening in August, 1867. Rev. M. Henry Smith was named by the School Board to take charge of the city's black schools and served as principal and teacher in the school. In 1871, Smith resigned his post to become the first President of Lincoln Institute