While Clayton traces its first graduating class back to 1911, its neighbors did not open their doors until 1952, making it nearly double the age of its longstanding rivals, Ladue Horton Watkins. 

“Prior to that, the students who lived in the Ladue school district went to Clayton,” Steven Hutson, Clayton High School’s Athletic Director, said.

Hutson and Principal Dan Gutchewsky shared that after Ladue was built, several students transferred, leaving Clayton.

“We believe that through that transition of students moving out of Clayton’s high school, into Ladue, the rivalry just naturally happened,” Hutson said. 

The rivalry between Clayton and Ladue High School began with the westernization of St. Louis, but it expanded over time. 

“When I went to high school, the pep club was really important in trying to get school spirit to a maximum. School spirit was really important because it encouraged all the students to come out to the games and root for the teams. So we’d go to Clayton for football,” 1969 Ladue alumnus Steven Hamburg said. “They’d come to Ladue for football, and everybody would try to yell our loudest and out-yell the other side. The cheerleaders were wonderful in those days, and they got everybody really excited. But the Pep Club was the main motivator for school spirit, getting us to those games off campus.”

When alumnus Robert Kodner graduated from Clayton two years later, he recalled the rivalry extending into their personal lives.

“I went to Sunday school with a lot of Ladue kids,” Kodner said. “We also had a nightclub for the high school students in Clayton called Depot around Mark Twain Circle, where the high school is. If you keep going past the school, there’s a building that has, like, a basement in it that you can use if it’s still there. In the basement, there was a high school nightclub, and on Friday nights, you had to buy a subscription to hear live bands play.” 

The Ladue students did not have anything like it, Kodner explained, and this caused tensions.

“We didn’t want them there. We’re going to have these gang fights, which never really materialized into actual fighting, mostly name-calling, but we didn’t want them there. They used to show up and be kind of a nuisance to us,” Kodner said.

Decades later, the competition between the two schools is less about high school territory and more about land prices. On Lizzy Dooley’s real estate team’s website, she shared an article titled “Ladue vs. Clayton: Where Should You Buy in St. Louis County,” which reports that the median home price in Ladue is $1.2 million, while in Clayton it is $720,000. The typical home value in America is $360,000, according to Zillow. 

“There were a lot of kids with similar backgrounds, many of our parents knew each other and were friends, so it just spread down into the kids,” Kodner said.

One of the reasons the areas are so expensive is the educational standards and opportunities in Clayton and Ladue High Schools. Clayton and Ladue are both top-ranked nationally, but also the two best public schools in the state, according to niche.com.

“The main rivalry with Ladue and Clayton were in rivalries not only in sports, but with how many of the graduating seniors went to college, and then not only did they go to college, but which college, because they were either happy going to a state school or they wanted to go to a private school,” Hamburg said.

While Clayton may not always have been on par with Ladue in sports, they were always neck-and-neck academically. 

Niche.com reports that the percent of proficiency in reading sits at 69% for Clayton, and 72% for Ladue. While Clayton is at 66% in regards to math with Ladue sitting at 48%.

“Clayton was always on par with Ladue with regard to academics. The number of kids that took AP classes went on to four-year colleges. It was pretty much equal, as again, the socioeconomic backgrounds of most of the kids in Clayton Ladue were pretty similar,” Kodner said.