Wheatley Public School was a segregated school for Negro children during the Jim Crow era, which was built in 1928 in Colonial Revival style. It was previously separately listed on the National Register, in 1998. The school building is now a museum, the Wheatley School Museum. As of 2017 the museum could be visited upon appointment made at the Rattler's Grocery, operated by Rex Rattler Sr.[2]
The District also includes the Gatlin Grocery Store - Frank and Lutie Jordan House, built in 1908,[3] and Pleasant Hill Baptist Church at 915 Garfield St. The church was completed in 1919.[3]
The church's sign, from 1963, is a contributing object.[3]
The district "is in a section of Poplar Bluff that represents the area where African Americans settled and formed a community within Poplar Bluff." It was deemed significant as an "intact cohesive collection" of early twentieth-century commercial, educational and religious buildings "that interrelate to express a history of development, commerce, education, and social history spanning the district’s period of significance 1908 - 1968."[3]