After the previous school building burned to the ground in 1892, the Webster Groves School Board built a new two-room frame schoolhouse on Holland Avenue near the ravine. John A. Agee became the first principal and teacher, and Lulu Farmer was appointed his assistant. In 1895, parents from North Webster met with the school district to ask that the school be given a name, and the district requested that the children submit names to be chosen. The school was named Douglass School in honor of Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born a slave in 1817 and lived on a Maryland plantation. He escaped from slavery in 1838 and attained fame as an anti-slavery orator in the 1840's. He published an abolitionist newspaper for seventeen years and recruited Negro troops for the North. He was appointed as Minister to Haiti and in 1865 became the first Negro to attend the inauguration reception of an American president, Abraham Lincoln. The 1928-29 school year was the first in which Douglass School had a graduating high school class, and it was the only accredited high school in St. Louis County for African-Americans until 1951.