"He's got a little coffee shop near Grand & Gravois and he's going to open up a new one near 9th and Soulard. His wife works at a law firm by Lindell & Taylor and they live in a loft near Washington & 10th Street."
When a long time St. Louisan hears such a conversation, his mind immediately sees each intersection and the local landmarks around it. In the space of a couple sentences, he may have visualized over a hundred images during his mind travel around St. Louis. Following those words, he saw the White Castle, the old bank building and the Phillips 66 station at Grand & Gravois and remembered that it's really a crooked intersection. Then he recalled Llywelyn's Pub & the Soulard Soap Laundromat at 9th & Soulard and knew that they were real close to Trinity Lutheran Church. Next he envisioned the beautiful Cathedral Basilica and it's galaxy of mosaics at Lindell & Taylor and realized that he wasn't a big fan of the Optimist Building across the street. On to 10th and Washington, he thought about the garment district where his grandpa worked and saw clear images of pretty girls walking into boutiques, restaurants and night clubs while he imagined his friends sharing a bottle of red wine in their loft nearby. Okay, the guy may not have pictured any of that stuff, but hey, work with me here, I'm trying to set-up a pictorial feature.
In St. Louis, it seems that nobody ever gives anyone an address or tells them the block number of a street. In this town, they'll say "Meet us at that one Irish joint at Market and 20th, before the game. They've got good burgers." Let's call that method "Directions by intersections." I'm pretty sure that it's a long tradition here, because when I asked my Dad where Sportsman's Park was in 1962, he didn't miss a beat and said "Grand and Dodier." As if a 7 year old kid from Florissant, knew where the hell that was. About 5 or 6 years later, I heard my first St. Louis intersection joke and it goes like this: "Did you hear that Popeye got lost in St. Louis? He got on Olive and thought it was Grand."
On that note, it's time to get serious and show you what some very familiar St. Louis intersections looked like 140 years ago. All of the images are segments of larger plates that made up an incredible topographical survey of St. Louis, drawn in perspective, by Camille N. Dry in 1875 and published by Compton & Company, in 1876. Mr. Dry spent a considerable amount of time in a hot air balloon to capture the whole of St. Louis in over 100 distinct plates. All images are in the public domain and displayed through the courtesy of The Library of Congress. Click on photos for larger images.
Full Plate Detail Example
8th & Olive
14th & Spruce
7th & Park
Carondelet & Arsenal
Magnolia & Tower Grove
Cherokee & Gravois
5th & Chouteau
Broadway & Bates
Easton (MLK Blvd.) & Ewing
California & Lafayette
Goodfellow & Bircher
Grand & Arsenal
Grand & Gravois
Grand & Natural Bridge (St. Louis Fairgrounds)
Clayton & Manchester
Jefferson & Chouteau
Kingshighway & Virginia
Kingshighway & Clayton
Lindell & Taylor
Washington & 12th (Tucker)
Lafayette & Carondelet
Manchester & Compton
Market & Jefferson
Kingshighway & Manchester
Mississippi & Park (Lafayette Park)
Russell & Menard
St. Charles Rock Road & Easton (Now MLK Blvd.)
Pestalozzi & Carondelet
St. Charles Rock Road & Kingshighway
St. Charles Rock Road (MLK) & Taylor
Tower Grove at Shaw's Park
Washington & Ewing
Thanks for stopping by and I hope you found us okay. We're not that far away from The Rock Road & Lindbergh if you'd like to meet for a beer some day.
