We’ve looked at two sections of South Broadway before, here and here. But my discovery of this house spurred an investigation that led me to finding all sorts of other interesting things about the last few blocks of St. Louis before you cross the bridge over the River des Peres into Lemay and St. Louis County. The house, which looks like it might have served some time as a drive-in restaurant, is in fact the home of Carl Klausmann, whose brewery stood in between his house and the river. Like the vast majority of breweries, it had cellars that kids got into so they were sealed up, and the buildings were demolished in the mid-Twentieth Century.

There was a small amusement park nearby (anybody remember it?) as well as a gasometer, which has become an endangered species around St. Louis. This one lay east of South Broadway.

William Swekosky captured the home before it was turned into a commercial space. It’s obvious that the centrally planned house, with a hall running the width of the home on both the first and second stories, once had a door in the central bay on the second story and a small balcony. It’s been badly patched already and replaced with a small window in Swekosky’s photo from the first half of the 1900s.

It seems like some of the original sashes survive on the first floor windows, but the second floor ones have been completely replaced.

As you can see below, the brewery would have completely dominated the neighborhood. I don’t think the house below, while in a similar style as the Klausmann residence, is the same one.

Heading north a ways, due to heavy loss of the historic fabric of South Broadway, we spot some really nice houses along the thoroughfare north of Tesson Street.

Just south of Primm, we start to see some greater density, including this hip roofed duplex below.

I suspect these two Greek Revival houses may have been modified with steel beams to create storefronts as Carondelet became denser.

The next block, between Primm and Courtois streets, is well documented with a photograph from 1931, showing that little has changed other than the addition of latex paint to the façades of some buildings.

Again, these stone walled houses were almost certainly modified to add storefronts to their first floors.

Then there is this amazing building, which was once common further north on Broadway in the Kosciusko neighborhood, but was swept away by foolish urban renewal plans.

Across the street is the Anton Schmid House, which you can see in its original location before being moved to St. Louis Square Park.