A two-and-a-half-story brick schoolhouse in the Second Empire style, with a concave mansard roof crowned by a small cupola and finial. Round-arched window openings on the upper floors carried stone hoods, and paired round-arched dormers punctuated the mansard. A projecting central pavilion, capped by its own steep-pitched roof, marked the entrance. Quoined brick corners and a low stone foundation completed the exterior. A wood picket fence enclosed the school lot.
The St. Louis Board of Public Schools built the Rock Spring School at Manchester Road and Papin Street in 1870, according to the Board's 1883 dimensional census. A photograph by St. Louis photographer Emil Boehl, held by the Missouri History Museum and dated ca. 1890s, documents the building at that intersection. The Board replaced it with a new Rock Spring School, designed by William B. Ittner, which opened at 3974 Sarpy Avenue in 1898.
