The Missouri Crematory was completed in 1888 according to designs by Otto Wilhelmi, and supposedly is the first one west of the Mississippi River, but I could not verify that. To be honest, much of the information out there on the crematory is not great, contradicts itself, and is also demonstrably wrong. I was able to track down a reliable source that said the first stirrings began as early as the 1870s to construct the facility, with the association founded in 1885. Just west of the State Psychiatric Hospital, despite misconceptions, it was never associated with that institution. I also read that this was the tenth modern crematory in America.

The photograph above must have been taken just shortly after the crematory’s construction, as the trees are small out front, and there is a fence around the building, reflecting the area’s rural surroundings. There is a small house to the right, which almost certainly was the caretaker’s. The small caretaker’s house that I remember being on the property to the south was demolished in 2017, according to a demolition permit in city records. I do not know if it was the same house seen in the photo above. I also question whether this photograph was taken by Fuhrmann, who was born in 1880, since it seems to depict the crematory so early in its existence.

Anyway, as I’m sure many people know, cremation has been a method of disposing of bodies for millennia, and was popular in the Roman Empire two thousand years ago, though inhumation, the practice of burying bodies rose in prominence with the rise of Christianity. Cremation rose in popularity with notions of sanitation, as well as the practice of building mausolea instead of cemeteries (Oak Grove championed itself as a “new” type of interring the dead).

I went on a tour of the crematory way back in 2008 with the old caretaker who is now gone when the folks at Valhalla owned the place (there are new owners with a new website), and he seems to be long gone. The crematory society actually went out of business in 1928, and Valhalla took over then and had owned all the way up until when the new owners took over.

I sort of chuckle at the architecture; it is a mix of Neo-Classicism, evident in the roofline, but the windows are very obviously the Romanesque Revival. Sort of typical of the period after the Civil War in America.

The crematory is no longer used for many reasons, though all the machinery is still extant; one major reason is that the old potters’ field is now a subdivision across the street! But you can see the chimney.

Like I said, the windows below are Romanesque Revival.

Across the way is a columbarium, which is taken from the Latin word for pigeon, as the niches for urns full of ashes looked like the little cubby holes where pigeons would roost. This columbarium, according to sources is from 1897 with the addition added in 1917, which looks about right.

It is inspired by the architecture of Donato Bramante and the Belvedere Palace in the Vatican, sort of loosely.

It’s interesting inside, but it is locked for safekeeping nowadays. There is a beautiful painted ceiling that is obscured by a drop ceiling that was covered with piece of broken plaster the last time I was there! Hopefully the new owners can fix it.

Usually, the little niches below have portrait busts of famous people like Roman emperors but these are empty.

There is a newer mausoleum, supposedly built in 1959, but according to city records it was built in sections, so that is probably the oldest part. The chapel looks to be the 1960s.

Right across Sublette Avenue is the South City YMCA