There is a large portion of the city cut off by the interstates. Up north, we see mostly devastation, as people fled living next to an interstate on the west and industry on the east. Down south, it’s not so… Continue Reading
Coming through the ice house on the Lemp Brewery’s property, a rail line came down Potomac, and curved northward to hook up to the Iron Mountain Railroad. While the middle of the curving path is now gone due to the… Continue Reading
Located down an isolated road that looks like it goes nowhere are the buildings of what was once a Merck pharmaceuticals factory, and an adjacent factory that may have been owned by Merck or at least operated in tandem to… Continue Reading
I was showing someone the municipal incinerator down on Gasconade Street. It’s an impressive structure, and from I understand, it still burns our garbage. It’s a shame it doesn’t capture the electrical potential of that heat like Baltimore’s incinerator does.… Continue Reading
I love this Sanborn Map, almost completely worthless for the needs of fire insurance pricing (can railroad tracks catch on fire?), and bordering more on the abstract. Imagine all of those lines full with trains.
In the area I refer to as part of the South Riverfront, is the former mixed use neighborhood of Kosciusko. It’s been mostly demolished, but as I investigated several years ago, there are still a couple of buildings left from… Continue Reading
To say Lyon Park is forgotten is an understatement. Other than some softball leagues who play there in the summer, I have never really seen anyone there when I go by. But the memorial to the Union general, Nathaniel Lyon,… Continue Reading
“Wow, look at all of those cool buildings in the Sanborn maps!” I said to myself a couple of months ago, while perusing the area of the South Riverfront due east of Soulard, a neighborhood called Kosciusko that literally no… Continue Reading
When a small Confederate army set up camp on the site of what is now Saint Louis University, their plot to seize the weapons stored at the Arsenal south of downtown began to unfold. However, they were stopped by Nathaniel… Continue Reading
I love how Bismarck Street (now long gone due to urban renewal on the south riverfront in the 1960’s) starts and stops thirty feet from its two ends. I know growing up, I assumed the City laid out all of… Continue Reading