Historical Marker
St. Louis School
Historical marker location:
Pawhuska, Oklahoma
( Marker is at the intersection of West Main Street (U.S. 60) and Farrell Avenue, on the right when traveling west on West Main Street.)
This Osage girls school was founded in 1887 by Mother Mary Katharine Drexel, a Philadelphia heiress who entered a convent as a young woman and used her fortune to support educational institutions across the southern United States, and the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions. The school's original frame building burned in 1889 and was replaced by a four-story stone building. In 1942, the school became St. Louis Academy. Later, the buildings were razed and replaced with a low-income housing project. In 2000, Mother Katharine was named a saint by Pope John Paul II.
In the early 1900s, a group of African American settlers founded the town of Boley, Oklahoma. The town became a center of Black entrepreneurship and culture, with businesses ranging from banks to newspapers to theaters. Today, Boley is a small town but continues to celebrate its rich history.