Stowe Teachers College at Turner Middle (Miss Othmar)

2026 On view

Turner Middle School

Stowe Teachers College at Turner Middle (Miss Othmar)

DetailsDecommissioned parachute, re-established 40-foot flagpole

Address 2615 Billups Ave
St. Louis, MO

Site Description

Accessibility: The artworks are located in multiple outdoor locations surrounding Tandy Park and are accessible from sunrise to sunset. Artworks are viewable from sidewalks.

Artwork Details

Simonds’s works for Counterpublic create beacons for a dispersed teaching community and attempt to uncover material of the school, Stowe Teachers College (1890-1954) largely limited to a fading oral history without a centralized archive.

This building was built in 1938 as a community initiated PWA project specifically to house Stowe Teachers College. In 1954 when the school moved across town to be merged with a white teachers college, it was absorbed by the name of that school, Harris Teachers College. This building then became Turner Middle School, which was later closed. This work touches on the complex consequences of how schools were desegregated and the continued reality of school closures in particular neighborhoods.

The locations of these works include the historic sites of this school: Sumner High School (Normal Department and Sumner Teachers College, 1890–1929), Simmons Elementary School (Stowe’s laboratory school, 1929–1940), Turner Middle School (the purpose-built Stowe Teachers College, 1940–1954), and Harris–Stowe State University.

This project is additionally supported by Alexander Clark, Ian Harris, Noah Robbins & Felicity Sargent.

01 Timmy Simonds