You go to school every weekday, you walk into the foyers of the building and you walk through the spacious, yellow-tinted commons. You climb up the four flights of stairs to the top of the A building, and after your English class, you reluctantly descend and then ascend another three flights of stairs. Oftentimes during your journey, you wonder, “What is up with this place? Why are there so many stairs??”

Believe it or not, the school wasn’t designed to be one, giant building. Originally, it was four separate buildings, all separated from one another. The first building, the A building, was constructed all the way back in 1923. Twenty years later, ‘the Vocational Shop’ or what we recognize now as the Success Campus, was created. Next came B building, which was made specifically as a building for juniors and special services. Last, but not least, came the C building, serving as an expansion to the A and B buildings. So, what happened? Why aren’t they still separated? 

In 1995, a fire swept through the school during ongoing renovations, burning up every building except A building. After this unfortunate event, buildings C and B were rebuilt, and this time, they were connected to the A building (yay, no excessive walking!). This explains the seemingly half-baked placement on the stairs  and a multitude of other ‘strange’ things. Now that you know why some of the school’s architecture is the way it is, let’s see some of the coolest, weirdest and most interesting spots on the SCHS campus.

Lunchroom and Skylight

Lunch is one of the best parts of the school day. You get to eat, relax, talk to your friends and be out of general adult supervision. It’s important for the lunch room to be large, spacious, and able to accommodate many tables and students. The lunchroom at St. Charles High pulls this off by having two levels of tables for students to sit at, and having a spacious skylight ceiling above half of the lower cafeteria. If you look out from the railing on the second and bottom floor, you may notice the windows on the walls, a relic from the 1995 fire. It may give you an usually obscured view into the science rooms, but it really brings downtown Main Street to uptown St. Charles High.

The Spiral Staircase

The subtitle sounds creepy, I know. No, there are no children in the area beneath the spiral staircase, there is no second skeleton in a locker, there is no radioactive chemical glassware from the sixties. But there might be ghosts. Leading into the room containing the staircase is the backstage of the theatre, where the concrete walls are adorned and scribbled upon with student’s names, classes, plays, and other decades old doodles. If you go further to the left, you’ll find the spiral staircase leading into a storage closet in the building. You can exit through the storage closet into the second floor of A building. 

The Aux Gym

The auxiliary gym originally began as St. Charles High School’s main gym. Later on, as the school’s population grew larger and needed more space, they built the modern gym that we have now. However, the auxiliary gym has it’s uses. In 2010, St. Charles High School was visited by President Barack Obama, who gave a speech about health care reforms. 

The Entrance into West A Building

Have you ever noticed how beautiful this entrance is? At noon, when the sun is high and the light is abundant, it looks heavenly. The giant windows and double staircases compliment the intense natural lighting by making it look spacious.

George Washington and his cabinets

When you enter the B building, you’ll be greeted by a large painting of George Washington, a sculpture of an eagle, and cabinets in the front foyer. The eagle is facing towards you as you enter the building in order to intimidate you away from the George Washington painting. Ignore the eagle. Go up to the painting and repeat ‘George’ three times, and the painting will miraculously start looking around in sentience. This isn’t true in the slightest, right? Anyways, the sculpture of the eagle represents the fact that St. Charles High School was the first Renaissance school in Missouri. 

The Track and Field

If you’ve taken gym or any course related to exercise, there’s a good chance you’ve been to the track and field outside that’s across the street on the east side of the campus. The athletic field was constructed in 1938, and the bleachers were constructed by the W.P.A (the Works Progress Administration). Recently, the field received new turf, which you can learn more about here. 

The Success Campus/Vocational Building/D Building

Looking at this image, can you tell what the Success Campus used to be called? Look very closely. Look at the giant letters carved into the stone at the top of the building.  It used to be the Vocational Shop or D Building. The Vocational Shop was renovated and changed in 2007 into the Success Campus. Fun fact, if you go to the West side of the building near the street corner, sometimes water spews from the building and onto the grass. If you have nothing else to do and have no fear of being apprehended by the police, you can sit out there all day and watch it. 

The Pirate Cove

There are many unique parts of the building included in this article, but that doesn’t mean that the unique parts stop there. The next time you’re crawling up three flights of stairs or wandering aimlessly out of the doors, stop and take a look around at your surroundings, you might see something cool.