Vashon High School's original building presents a symmetrical Collegiate Gothic facade in red brick trimmed with limestone. Twin end pavilions rise into stepped, castellated parapets, framing a recessed central block with a pointed-arch entrance set beneath a carved stone surround. Buttresses divide the long facade into bays, each lit by tall, multi-pane windows with stone mullions and hood molds. Small carved shields mark the parapet line.
St. Louis Public Schools broke ground on Vashon High School in 1925, with Rockwell Milligan, the district's Commissioner of School Buildings, as architect — confirmed by the building's cornerstone, inscribed "Erected A.D. 1925 / Rockwell Milligan, Architect." The building opened for classes in September 1927 at 3026 Laclede Avenue, in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood. It was the district's second high school for Black students, built after community advocacy dating to 1922 for a dedicated, modern facility to relieve overcrowding at Sumner High School. The school was named for George Boyer Vashon, the first Black graduate of Oberlin College, and his son John Boyer Vashon, a St. Louis Public Schools teacher and principal. When the city began demolishing most of Mill Creek Valley in 1959 for urban renewal, the Laclede Avenue building was spared. Vashon High School relocated in 1963 to the former Hadley Vocational-Technical High School building at 3405 Bell Avenue — a move that drew community protests and student demonstrations — and the original building became part of Harris Teachers College, later Harris-Stowe State University. Vashon moved again in 2002 to a new building at 3035 Cass Avenue.
