Barton Academy - History

History

Barton Academy was named for Willoughby Barton, an Alabama state legislator from Mobile who introduced an act that created the Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County on January 10, 1826. This was the first education board in Alabama. The board bought all of the property in the block between Government, Cedar, Conti, and Lawrence Streets for $2750 in 1830.

Lack of funding stalled progress on the project until an act was passed in the state legislature that allowed the commissioners to raise funds through a lottery. By early 1836 the building committee had managed to pull together $50,000 in lottery funds, a $15,000 municipal loan, and additional private donations. This included a large private donation from local millionaire Henry Hitchcock, who was also on the building committee. Construction commenced on February 13, 1836, the same day as Government Street Presbyterian, with Charles Dakin as the supervising architect. Thomas James was hired as the mason, just as he was on Government Street Presbyterian project.

The Barton building project proved to be more complex than the one on Government Street Presbyterian, with Dakin forced to spend much more of his time supervising the construction. Progress on the building was slow. Then, on March 9, 1837, the building committee determined that work done on the roof was incomplete or faulty, resulting in water damage to the interior plaster. The building was at least habitable by the summer of that year, however, and the building committee began holding their meetings upstairs. Interior paint was applied in September 1837, but the last of the finish work was not completed until January 1839.

Following completion, the Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County then allowed the building to be used for private and denominational schools, with some funding appropriated to them by the commissioners. An act in 1846 allowed for taxes to be collected for the establishment of a free Methodist school by the commission. The commission was behind another act on February 9, 1852 that would have allowed the commission to sell the building, which was now in need of maintenance and repairs, and distribute the proceeds among the existing schools, if approved by the voters. The electorate rejected this and subsequently elected a new board of commissioners.

After the election of the new board, the building was repaired and the system was reorganized. The building reopened as a public school in November 1852. The school was closed for the duration of the American Civil War. The Girls High School reopened in 1865, followed by the Boys High School in 1870. Both would continue at Barton until the opening of Murphy High School in 1926. The building was surveyed by the Historic American Buildings Survey several times from 1934 to 1937. It continued to serve as a school building until the 1960s when it was converted into the Central Office for the Mobile County Public School System. Barton was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 16 February 1970.