As I began to research the business community in pre-Civil War St. Louis, the addresses of some of the most important factory owners often seemed to come up in the later footprint of Clinton-Peabody. Certainly the Cracker Castle is a well-known example, but there are many more.

It turns out that streets such as St. Ange Avenue were lined with Second Empire masterpieces that looked straight out of Soulard or Lafayette Square.

And of course, it’s only logical that the streets would look so; the neighborhood sits right in the middle of those two redeveloped areas. Perhaps lacking in an official identity, the area took the name of its grade school.

And of course, just like those other Near South Side neighborhoods, it fell on hard times in the mid Twentieth Century.

The same tired arguments for demolition were trotted out: no indoor plumbing, blah, blah, blah.

Of course, Lafayette Square now has a median home price over a half million dollars and Soulard is around $440,000. So what do you think these houses would be selling for now if they hadn’t been demolished, sitting right in between those two neighborhoods?

Maybe we’re starting to get a clearer picture of why St. Louis is struggling to compete nationally.