The Central Public School of 1888 was subsumed into this significantly expanded 1925 building to create the city’s only junior-senior high school for white students. The Jacobean style reaches here its highest development in the state. Two turreted towers clasp a two-story central entrance with bay windows, and cast-stone stringcourses stretch across the facade for horizontal emphasis. Lindsley’s E-shaped floor plan incorporates interior courtyards (later covered), an auditorium, and natural lighting in an arrangement popularized in the 1910s by such national architects as William B. Ittner.
In 1936, the PWA funded a gymnasium and a band room in a rear addition that continued the Jacobean style with some Art Deco cast-stone detailing. The school closed in 1977, and the legislature occupied the building from 1979 to 1982 while the New Capitol (JM16) underwent renovation. Later, the building was converted for the Mississippi Department of Education, which has occupied the building since 1998.