intersection of Cottage Avenue and Pendleton

Teachers at Sumner were all white until 1877, when a special effort was made at the request of the Black community in St. Louis to bring more Black teachers to Sumner. The need, in fact, for all the Black schools gave a push for there to be an established Normal school.

The Normal School was established at Sumner High School in 1890 "to provide Sumner High School graduates special preparation for the work of teaching, At the end of the school year of 1890-91, fourteen women received the Normal School diploma.

The connection between Sumner High School and the Normal School established 1890 would continue until the mid 20th century when the Normal school was disbanded after the Brown v. Board of education decision of 1954.

In 1929, its name was changed to Stowe Teachers College, after author Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, had promoted the abolitionist cause in the antebellum United States. From 1930 until 1940, Stowe Teachers College existed in the former Simmons Colored School campus.