Black students attended schools sponsored by the Freedmen's Bureau or by local black churches in the first few years after emancipation. In 1850, Mrs. Emily Tubman financed the Tubman Free School for black students that first was housed in the Bourbon Academy building and later at a location near 8th and High Streets. Black students were added to the city system by 1875. The location of the earliest black city school is unknown but it may have been where the Tubman school stood. The black school was eventually housed in a seven-room school building located at 7th Street and Western Way. It was appropriately named the Western School. The Western School building served as the school for all black students until 1963 when the high school classes were desegregated. The Western school housed the junior high grades from 1966 to 1970. The building was torn down in the 1970s.