The original Garfield School was a Romanesque Revival elementary school built in 1883 at 2612 Wyoming Street in Benton Park West, serving the neighborhood's German immigrant community. A Second Empire–style annex was added in the 1890s to accommodate growing enrollment. Both buildings were demolished shortly after the WPA-funded replacement school opened in 1936.
As south St. Louis filled with German immigrant families in the early 1880s, the city erected a new elementary school at 2612 Wyoming Street, naming it for recently assassinated President James A. Garfield. The 1883 building was designed in the Romanesque Revival style — a popular choice for civic and institutional buildings of the era — and was joined in the 1890s by a Second Empire addition placed in front of the original structure. The school served Benton Park West families for more than fifty years. By the 1930s, with both buildings aging and the neighborhood's demographics shifting, the Works Progress Administration chose the site for one of its New Deal school construction projects. Architect George A. Sanger designed a modern replacement building, completed in 1936. A photograph taken in July 1937 from Jefferson Avenue looking west shows the original 1883 structure still standing beside the new school; both predecessor buildings were demolished shortly after, likely between 1937 and 1940.
