Who doesn’t like a giant dam? Melvin Price Locks and Dam opened on October 10, 1989, replacing the aging Lock and Dam No. 26, which had major structural deficiencies. Dams have been getting the photographic treatment since at least Margaret Bourke White, which you can see here. The dam is so massive that it is…
Category: Metro East
Across the river in Illinois
Henry Street, Alton
Back to downtown, we see how Alton has beautiful Italianate houses of the merchants and other businessmen close to the river where riverboats and then the railroad flourished. Many are rehabbed and we even have an apartment building that would look at home in Southwest St. louis thrown in. This is a very green house….
Former Union Brewery and Environs, Alton
The former Union Brewery owned by the Yaekel Family, was built beginning the 1840s, before Pearl Street, which runs by the complex, was even laid out. The owner’s house, seen above and below, was one of the first buildings built in the complex. Later known as the Bluff City Brewery, the building below in the…
East Twelfth Street, Alton
The wealthy seemed to live on the flat plateau due north of downtown, while the working class lived in the curving ravines to the east. East Twelfth Street has some spectacular houses, along with some more middle class houses. This house below, Italianate to a certain degree, also has an over the top front portico,…
Public Square and Thereabouts, Alton
I made it back up to Alton for a little bit and checked out Public Square first. Easton Street, named after the founder of the city, intersects the square, and I suspect that originally it was planned to be a grand expanse surrounded by stores and whatnot. Instead, it is a quiet residential park, with…
Former Godfrey Congregational Church
For some reason, back in October of 2014 when we visited the former Monticello Women’s College, we totally missed the former Godfrey Congregationalist Church, just to the south of the of the main buildings. It’s a bit confusing but it seems to have also served Presbyterians and the Dutch Reformed churches, as well. Built in…
Virginia Place, East St. Louis
I mentioned Virginia Place yesterday, and there is actually a large number of houses left standing on the block between 29th and 33rd streets. There’s a central median, but unlike the two sides, there doesn’t seme to be any curb left. It is mowed, but there is minimal landscaping. Houses run the gamut from presumably…
Tina and Ike Turner Haunts
I recently read Tina Turner’s autobiography, and I thought it would be interesting to see if any of the places in the book were still standing. To put it bluntly, most of the famous clubs where rock n’ roll began (yes, it began here in St. Louis, but our leaders are so bad at their…
East St. Louis Updates
I was in East St. Louis recently and thought I would look and see how things are doing. There’s some good news and some bad. The bad news is that continued disinvestment has led to infrastructure having to be condemned, as is the case of the 26th Street Bridge, a major conduit for traffic over…
Demoliton, Cahokia Power Plant
I realized the smokestacks of the old Cahokia Power Plant are being demolished. Judging from the care in which the demolition is occurring, I suspect that the building below the stacks is being preserved and continuing in its use as a bulk transfer station, primarily for coal. But nonetheless, an iconic view from St. Louis…