I had always glanced down Nicholson Place while traveling down Lafayette Avenue, and had foolishly believed that the sadly truncated little street surely contained little history and few historic houses. After digging a little, I discovered I was dead wrong.… Continue Reading
The block of Lafayette Avenue across from the park between Mississippi Avenue (formerly Park Place) and Nicholson Place is short, but it is packed with history. Sadly, Number 2 on Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis, the house of John… Continue Reading
Moving west of Eighteenth Street, except for the loss of a couple houses just to the left of these two Second Empire storefronts, the north side of Lafayette Avenue is intact all the way to the alley behind Mississippi Avenue.… Continue Reading
Heading east on Carroll Street from Eighteenth Street, we realize that the area east of the park was largely undeveloped by 1876, most likely to the presence of karst topography (there were caves in the vicinity, as well). In fact,… Continue Reading
Moving north on Mississippi Avenue, we see that again, much of what was there in 1876 is now gone, with the exception of the half-flounder house, which you can see on the far left of Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St.… Continue Reading
Moving north of Kennett Place on Mississippi Avenue, we approach one of the most well-preserved stretches of Second Empire houses in St. Louis, and in Lafayette Square in general. But glancing at Compton and Dry above, we see that very… Continue Reading
The entire block of Mississippi Avenue between Lafayette Avenue and Kennett Place is in-fill, constructed in the first decade of the Twenty-First Century. But if we look back to Compton and Dry, we learn there was a whole other life… Continue Reading
Oregon Avenue north of Osceola Street represents the “standard” Dutchtown block; there is a mix of housing styles from the early Twentieth Century, with a few houses thrown in here and there from the Nineteenth Century after the Civil War.… Continue Reading
We’re picking up the “Rediscovering the Beauty of Dutchtown” series which was left off at Number 20. Whenever I come across a cluster of wood frame houses mixed in with later “suburban” brick houses from the early Twentieth Century, as… Continue Reading
Park Avenue east of Missisippi Avenue has always had a mix of commercial activity since the 1870s, as Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis shows. Manufacturing was always a fact of life, as well, with industrial uses south of Park.… Continue Reading