On the 8th day of July 1907, a petition was filed and recorded at the Nelson County Clerk’s office asking for the establishment of a Graded Common School in Bardstown. The names were counted and it appeared “a majority of the trustees of the said common School Districts have endorsed their approval of the petition.” A boundary was proposed, surveyed and filed. Included within this area was part of four school districts and the entire school district #33.
On September 23, 1907 an election was held at the Courthouse for the purpose of allowing the vote by the legal white voters in the Graded Common School District to determine if they would support by taxation of forty cents per $100 of property this new school. Also a poll tax of $1.00 on each white male inhabitant was proposed. This money to be used for the erection, purchase or repairing of buildings for the foresaid purpose. It is also stated that the boundary will be no more than two and one half miles from the site of the proposed schoolhouse. The voice votes were taken and the vote of 223 for and 120 against created the financial support for the Bardstown Graded School. Five trustees were also elected at the same time, W. A. Rosenham, J.W. Shaunty, John E. Newman, L.B. Samuels, and Ed O’Bryan. Rosenham, Samuels, O’Bryan and Newman were city councilmen. Samuels and Shaunty operated distilleries and the others were businessmen of the community.
The first years of the new school were filled with challenges. Principal Ernest N. Fulton was given the job of hiring teachers and setting up curriculum for all 12 grades. Mary Geoghegan, Aileen Mann, Eleanor Wicklffe Ella Carothers, and Principal Fulton comprised the first staff. The 1908-09 term was filled with musical and dramatic
productions by students from all grades. Some to raise funds for the school library. These were held at the school auditorium and
the new Opera House on Broadway.
Known as the Bardstown Graded School it combined several grades into one. Taught by experienced teachers who followed a required curriculum it was advertised as a “ Real Live School” . A new building, with new fixtures. Students came from inside the district as well as some from outside for which the County School System paid tuition of four dollars a month. The nine month school year was one month longer than the county‘s.
The Bardstown Graded School building was erected in 1908 at a cost of $30,000. A bond issue and loan from Farmers Bank started the project. Made of brick and stone it offered eight lower grades and four full years of high school. “Four years of Latin, four years in English, two years in French, two years in German, courses in Physics, Chemistry and Physiology with laboratory work in all three and a full four years in Mathematics” was the promotional listing. “Every boy and girl in Nelson county, who can give sufficient proof that he or she are prepared to take the high school course is entitled to free tuition.” Principal Ernest Fulton would oversee the teachers and students. This new public school resulted in lower enrollment at the private schools causing the closing of Nelson Normal School and Bardstown Baptist Institute.