Boehl and Koenig, Lafayette Park Police Station, Missouri History Museum, N33625 I’ve always known this beautiful little structure in the Second Empire style as the “police station,” but apparently it might be more properly known as the park house. It… Continue Reading
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
We’ll first take a look at these nice houses on Dolman above, which would fit in well in Soulard, but then we turn right onto Lafayette Avenue, which has changed dramatically in the time when it was first settled before… 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
The northeastern end of Vail Place originally held a large building labeled as “Car Stables” in Compton and Dry’s 1876 Pictorial St. Louis. I assume it was where residents either parked their carriages, or perhaps where early horse-drawn streetcars were… 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