The Clay Office and Conference Center is a renovated office complex formerly known as the Clay School. It is located at 453 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd in Detroit, Michigan

Michigan

Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

. It is the oldest school building in the city of Detroit. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1982.

History

In 1873, a frame schoolhouse was built at this location to serve the children living in the area. In 1888, the frame school was replaced by the current structure. Until 1923 the building served as an elementary school. For the next eight years, it was a center for boys with discipline problems, and it was later used as headquarters for vocational study and as administrative offices for the Practical Nursing Center. In 1981, the building was sold to a developer, who converted the building into office space.

Architecture

The building is two stories tall, with a high basement marked at the top line of exterior stones. The structure has a hipped roof and the front entry is arched and decorated in stone. The masonry tower at the top was, until c. 1990, topped with a wooden cupola.