32 Landmark St. Louis Intersections in 1875

By Steve Erdelen

"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.

St. Louis. It's all in the details.

 

Over the past few years, our country has been given one of the biggest treasure troves of great photography that anyone   has ever contributed. The renowned photographer Carol M. Highsmith, has toured the world and the United States, and has captured stunning images of our people, our places, our art and our architecture. Her recent donation of her entire collection of photographs to The Library of Congress, is mind boggling in it's generosity. Her collection of over 30,000 photographs is now in the public domain, which means that reproduction and publication of her photographs are now unrestricted.

In appreciation of Carol's art, I will always attribute her name to any of her photographs that I reproduce and that's what I'll do right now: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.   Carol made a visit to St. Louis in 2009 and took a number of architectural detail shots and some unique images of The Gateway Arch. In fact, I believe her photo of the full Arch, in all its' glory, is the best I've seen.  Let's take a walk with Carol through St. Louis and stop every once in a while to admire some of our City's most impressive architectural details.  Be sure to click on the photos for larger images.

 

Keil Opera House details:



 

 

 

National Archives Building detail:

 

Rooftop detail

Door detail

Staircase

One fancy mailbox

National Archives Building close-up

Thirsty?

Building detail

Soldier's Memorial details:

 



St. Louis Gateway Arch detail:

^ I believe that's the best photo of the Arch I've seen

 Thanks to Carol M. Highsmith for her incredible gift to our country.

 

Steve Erdelen



A Tardy Pardon and Other Buried Treasures

By Kyle Schrader

As he picks up flowers spilled by April showers, Kenneth “Ken” Cox points to a grave etched as being shared by Benjamin, George, and Dennis Lackland and explains, “When there was a flu epidemic, it was not unusual to have two children buried together, or a mother and child.”

 Cox, chairman of trustees of the Fee Fee Cemetery Association, is perusing the grounds, located on Old Saint Charles Road in Bridgeton. He notes the poor readability of the Lacklands’ grave marker: “It’s worn limestone. Limestone just doesn’t stand up to the weather.” Lastly, he points out that the monument, like many others there, is an obelisk (think Washington Monument).

A man with appreciation for the details and history of Fee Fee Cemetery, Cox has held his position as chairman for approximately a decade. Before that, he “joined the church in 1986 and got on the board of trustees, gosh, probably 20 years ago, give or take.”

Cox verifies the historical significance, stating, “It is the first and oldest active cemetery west of the Mississippi.” That distinction “used to belong to one down around Ste. Genevieve, but they closed it and the church around 100 years ago.” He continues, “You’ve got old cemeteries out in the woods somewhere, but we don’t know that.”

Besides the Lackland family name, one scanning headstones might also see the locally recognizable Adie, Hickman, Hanley, Averill, and Branneky surnames, just to name a few. Regarding family plots, Cox asserts, “People bought lots back on the 1930s and are just now using the rest of them.”

But perhaps the most interesting resident in the cemetery is Confederate soldier James Morgan Utz, who died in 1864. “He was caught as a spy here in St. Louis,” Cox relates. “He didn’t claim innocence, but somehow somebody got ahold of Lincoln for a pardon. He was hung the day after Christmas in downtown St. Louis, wherever the Union headquarters was, because the pardon was not in time.”

 

The original Fee Fee Baptist Church, the oldest Baptist church west of the Mississippi, was organized in 1807, and the original church structure was built when land was deeded for a church and cemetery in 1815. That small wooden structure (the exact whereabouts of which remain unknown and the subject of rumor and speculation) was replaced in 1828-1829 by the brick Old Fee Fee Meeting House, which still stands today and is the oldest house of worship in St. Louis County. In 1870, a new church building was erected at Fee Fee and St. Charles Rock Road (then replaced by another church, the current one, built at the same location in 1975), and the Meeting House was converted into a cemetery office and caretaker home. It remains so to this day, with caretakers Pat and Brenda Moutray residing there with son Chris.

Just behind the Meeting House is the “Preachers’ Area,” where only past preachers of the church are buried. And as one drives up to the Meeting House, to the right is “Cremation Garden,” where the ashes of the deceased are laid to rest. There is also a gate still standing in the middle of the yard, a gate to nowhere, as it were, that was put up in 1914. “It’s too narrow now,” Cox clarifies. “A car or truck would tear it up,” as it was made for buggies. He indicates a particularly large slab of a headstone, weighing several tons, and marvels at how it must have been brought in via horse and buggy.

Referring to some of the older burials in the cemetery, Cox attests, “We do have some Revolutionary War burials in here, but they were moved from other unknown cemeteries.” He adds that he has “no idea” about the number of graves, because “there are a lot of unmarked graves.” He can, however, often tell if the ground has been disturbed. “If the ground’s real dry, sometimes I can tell whether it’s been disturbed or not.”

In addition to pointing out the popularity of obelisks on the property, Cox comments that there are a number of headstones with Masonic symbols, indicating the numerous Freemasons. And finally, he shares a story about why Civil War-era Union headstones tend to be flat or curved at the top, while their Confederate counterparts are often pointed like a rooftop: “So no damn Yankee can sit on them,” or so the saying goes.

Occasionally, Pattonville High School brings its history students to the cemetery for field trips.  In 1957, Ruth E. Abraham wrote As a Tree Planted, about the history of Fee Fee Cemetery, and as the rebuilding of Fee Free Road afforded more space to be used for future burials, there is undoubtedly more history left to be written.

 

The Bear Wrestling, Pulitzer Prize Winning, Ex-Marine from Ritenour

1964 Ritenour graduate, Mike Keefe

The list of accomplished people who graduated from Ritenour High School is very impressive, but the name Mike Keefe, Class of 1964, really sparked my attention when I recently read through a list of notable alumni on the School District’s Web Site. Could this be the same Mike Keefe whose work I’ve always admired on Cagle.com? The same Mike Keefe that won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorial cartoons, while working at The Denver Post? I double-checked and yes, as it turns out, he’s the same guy.

"Mike Keefe was the editorial cartoonist for The Denver Post from 1975 through late 2011. His work continues in syndication. Throughout the nineties he was a weekly contributor to USA Today and a regular on America Online. Nationally syndicated, his cartoons have appeared in Europe, Asia and in most major U.S. news magazines and hundreds of newspapers across the country.  Keefe’s animations have appeared on broadcast TV, the internet and CD-ROM magazines.

He has won top honors in the Fischetti, National Headliners Club, Society of Professional Journalists and Best of the West contests. He was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University and is a past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. He was a juror for the 1997 and 1998 Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism. He won the Pulitzer himself in 2011.” *

 
 
A very impressive resume to say the least, but Mike didn't spend his youth in a privileged environment and his career path was never guided by affluent parents with high-level business connections. In fact, he had to work very hard to overcome tragic family circumstances and create opportunities for himself. His talent and insight were shaped by overcoming hardship and putting his sense of adventure to practice. His incredible self-reliance is briefly explained in two excerpts from a profile written about Mike, by Charles McNamara:

"His brother died at age two and a half, devastating his mom and forcing his father, Ray Keefe, to find ways to care for her while earning a living. Running out of resources, he took the family back to California to be closer to other family. It didn’t work. The Keefe family fell apart. Mike, at age 17, was on his own and started wandering. Mike’s two sisters were put in foster homes. He lost contact with his family for years. His father cared for his wife until she died in 1971. Ray died in 1980.

Keefe hitchhiked across America for a couple of years, worked for a year at the Chevrolet plant in Leeds, a suburb of Kansas City and then was drafted into the Marine Corps. After his discharge, using the GI Bill, he went to the Univ. of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) and earned a Bachelor’s, Master’s and completed the coursework for a PhD in mathematics."

"While studying at UMKC, Keefe started drawing cartoons for the University News. He became friends with Bill Sanders, cartoonist at The Milwaukee Journal. Sanders heard that Pat Oliphant, editorial cartoonist for The Denver Post, had taken a new job. He wrote a referral letter about Keefe to the Post who hired him in 1975. At that point he had drawn about 50 cartoons." **

One would think that being a world renowned editorial cartoonist would be enough for one man, but after contacting Mike, I learned that he’s also an award winning author, a husband, father, guitarist, harmonica player and a bear wrestler. We’ll get to the bear wrestling a little later, but let me first take the liberty to explain why I’m fascinated with folks who do what Mike Keefe does, so well.

As a career marketing person, I’m a bit envious of every good editorial cartoonist, because not only do they have eye-catching graphics ability and a strong, persuasive message, they also have the credibility of an entire news organization behind them. That’s impact and power that you just can’t buy for the price of an ad.   

 

Nothing can better personify the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words,” than the work of a great editorial cartoonist. The best ones get directly to the heart of the matter and leave a powerful impression on us without reading paragraph after paragraph of political commentary. . They can reach the real essence of any crisis very quickly, whether that crisis is the economy, government corruption, political folly, or a man-made or natural disaster. Editorial cartoons can illuminate ridiculous policies, address important issues that are being ignored and call out inept leaders, greedy billionaires, warmongers and egomaniacs, to put them in their rightful place.

Remarkably, they can do all that with just one picture and a few words and sometimes, no words at all. The best editorial cartoonists can make an immediate and sometimes incredibly persuasive impact on a mind that was previously made up. Trust me, that’s every marketers dream.



 Mike’s cartoons tend to lean to the Democratic, or more liberal side of the issues and I asked him how his opinions were originally formed:

 “Regarding politics, even though I didn’t understand the issues well, I was swept up in the JFK campaign in 1960. He was a charming candidate and, like me at the time, Catholic. Parishioners at St. Gregory’s were energized and the feeling was contagious. My political views were not really shaped until later, especially during the Vietnam War. By then, I’d been away from St. Ann for a couple of years.”

Well, it all makes sense now. Mike hails from an area that grows Catholics, Democrats, Marines and folks with a healthy sense of humor. I’m happy that he’s taken a good bit of that heritage with him to help shape world opinion for a living. 

I hope you've enjoyed our feature, but I know what you've really been waiting for... here's Mike's bear wrestling story, from his own pen:    

VICTOR

I was on the wrestling team at Ritenour in 1964 when I read a story in the Post Dispatch (or one of the county newspapers) about a wrestling bear. The owner was offering a cash prize to anyone who could pin this bear whose name, as I recall, was Victor.

So far, Victor was undefeated.

I decided to take the challenge. When I told my young sister, Teri, what I planned to do, she pleaded with me: “Don’t do it! You’ll get killed!”

She always had a flare for drama.

While she couldn’t dissuade me, she insisted on coming along in case she had to leap in and pull me away from a mauling.

The event was held in the parking lot of a car dealership in St. Charles. We drove out on the Rock Road and when we arrived there was already a crowd surrounding Victor and his owner. The bear was muzzled and on a leash.

I wanted to wait and watch someone else enter the circle first and grapple with the bear so that I could get an idea of what I was up against. But there were no takers.

Finally, I stepped up. I was assured that the animal had been declawed and his fearsome teeth were safely out of the way behind the leather muzzle. There was some sort of time limit to the match, probably a minute or two.

The owner raised his hand then brought it down sharply. “Wrestle!”

I circled Victor, out of reach, for ten seconds, looking for an opening, The bear, still on his leash, turned with me. At first he stayed on all fours like a friendly dog, but then he reared up on his hind legs. He had six inches on me, at least. Intimidating. Oh well, I thought, this is what I came to do. I plunged in and wrapped my arms around him in, yes, a bear hug.

At that point, you wouldn’t call it wrestling exactly. It was more like dancing. Round and round we went in a fox trot.

Then somehow we ended up on the asphalt, rolling around playfully. I tried for something resembling a half nelson and got a powerful whiff of Victor’s breath. Holy smoke! The fumes were toxic. I was afraid the skin on my face might curdle. Then he poked his tongue out from the muzzle and licked my cheek.

Still, I hung in there and, remarkably, I found that I had Victor on his back.

That’s when I discovered why the animal was undefeated. It was impossible, anatomically, to put both his shoulders on the ground at once. Bears aren’t built that way. Victor seemed to smile and easily pushed me to the side.

Soon, time was up, and I skulked away, defeated.

On the way home, Teri admitted that the whole thing was terrific fun and she was grateful that I had not been eaten.

After a moment, though, she leaned toward me.

“Ewwww! What’s that smell?”

                                                                  _____________________

Before we go, let me play a couple more toons from Mike Keefe:

 



 * Quote from San Miguel Writers Conference, where Mike won top prize for his nonfiction story, "The Blue Grenade," in 2014. You can read the story here: http://sanmiguelwritersconferenceblog.org/blue-grenade-by-mike-keefe/

 ** Profile of Mike Keefe, by Charles McNamarahttp://justaroundhere.com/index.php/all-sections/names-faces/famous-infamous-with-a-link-to-evergreen/109-mike-keefe-editorial-cartoonist

 
 

A snapshot of traffic stops in Northwest St. Louis County

Emerson’s public donation hides the real problem in Ferguson

Emerson Electric (Headquartered in Ferguson, Missouri) generated $25 billion in sales in the past year and is projected to have over $3.5 billion in cash on hand, next year.  Their recent corporate donation of $4.4 million to fund scholarships and job training in the Ferguson area is very admirable, but that donation will also serve as a quick fix for a nightmarish public relations problem and of course, the donation is tax deductible.

Considering the circumstances, I’m confident that there were some very high-level meetings recently at Emerson’s headquarters and it was decided to attack the “Ferguson problem”, with a generous donation.  Again, I believe that was a noble gesture, but it doesn’t begin to address what the real problem for Ferguson and its’ surrounding cities really is.  Namely, a lack of good paying manufacturing jobs for people who are willing to work hard and provide for their families.  Minimum wage jobs and social assistance programs have never revived any cities that I’m aware of.  None.  Ferguson was built primarily from the success of nearby manufacturing plants like McDonnell-Douglas (Boeing) Ford, GM and Emerson itself.  It was those companies’ movements elsewhere and their downsizing that have decimated Ferguson. 

In today’s world, stockholder pressure and senior executive profit incentives, force companies to ignore the communities that helped to build their company in the first place.  Companies are now run by accountants who are constantly searching the world for the cheapest labor and lowest taxes available, to show higher profits on a short-term basis.  Investors and executives demand it.

 

Consequently, some simple research on Emerson’s own Web Site reveals that the company operates more than 150 manufacturing plants outside of the United States.  Sure, many of those plants may have existed previously through Emerson’s worldwide acquisitions, but the question remains, how many new plants are planned to be built in the United States?  Or, better yet, in Ferguson?  How many?

Ferguson’s demise directly correlates with the demise of the middle class in America and more specifically, North St. Louis County.  Corporate profits are at an all-time high, but workers’ wages have actually dropped when you figure inflation into the equation.  If things need to change and we all know they do, why not start in Ferguson?  It has the focus of the world on it right now and Emerson is a worldwide company.  Emerson, please build a plant in Ferguson.  Build a big one.  Be an example to the thousands of corporations who forgot where their roots were and become a pioneer in helping to rebuild the American Middle-Class.  

 

Steve Erdelen