Another warehouse on the Near North Riverfront has been destroyed by a suspicious fire. While certainly we can attribute some of the conflagrations to squatters accidentally allowing campfires to grow out of control, I was told that in some instances, including the one that hit the Norvell-Shapleigh Warehouse, that was most definitely not the case. Large bundles of paper left by former tenants had been ignited, which was completely different than when small fires had started in the past left by the homeless. My sources told me it was really easy to get inside, despite the owners cinder-blocking up the first couple floors’ windows and doors.

This is starting to get really sad, and we’re starting to run out of historic warehouses and buildings in this neighborhood. So much for worrying about development for a new NFL stadium demolishing them; they’re burning down one by one.

In this photograph above, in the right middle ground you can actually see the ruins from the last major fire that destroyed the Beck and Corbitt Iron Works building back in October of 2022, silhouetted against the concrete block wall of a cold storage warehouse (it was partially demolished at one point-hence the new wall), which itself was gutted by fire back in January of 2017, leaving spectacular ice sculptures in the frigid temperatures. It also reminds me of the loss of the Belcher Sugar Refinery in a fire, which happened back when I was living outside of the St. Louis region.

While the Norvell-Shapleigh Warehouse did in fact take up the entire block-sized building, originally it had other tenants, and it was actually built in phases. The northernmost fourth, built in 1904 according to the designs of Isaac Taylor, housed the John K. Kennard Carpet Company, which in its day was famous throughout St. Louis for importing rugs and other carpets from around the world. John Sr.’s son, Samuel, of course was involved in fighting for the Confederacy and eventually owned a house in Westmoreland Place after owning a house in Midtown. His daughter’s house was torn down a couple of years ago. The elementary school with his name was recently changed. Note the ghost sign of the Kennard name which was covered up for over a century after the later additions were built.

But I digress. In 1906, the building was expanded to Ashley Street (more of just a gravel path today) and three additional tenants moved in. The two middle spaces were just the Ashley Street Merchandise Warehouse Co., but the last fourth to the south was taken up by the Norvell-Shapleigh Hardware Company, whose history was written up recently by Jackie Dana.

The building is a total loss (though you might notice the original southern curtain wall seemed to have stopped the fire a little bit), and was demolished with some fireworks in the process.

Note how the floor joists were designed to fall out clean from the load-bearing walls so as to not bring the walls down with the floors when they collapsed during a fire. The theory being, which is not the case here, is that the walls could be reused.

But of course, high enough temperatures can severely damage the mortar in between bricks, and while clay bricks are fired at extremely high temperatures, even they can be compromised if an inferno burns too hot.

Note the self-closing fire doors that were still clinging to the walls.

It was still smoldering a little when I visited, so the Fire Department was on scene–as well as at least one ATF agent. Is there a serial arsonist at work? Honestly, I’m a huge fan of Occam’s Razor.

There is so much poverty, so much homelessness in St. Louis, and quite frankly, so many poorly secured abandoned buildings on the Near North Riverfront (and throughout the city, for that matter), that there are just going to be a lot of fires in the winter. Jumping to the conclusion that there’s some sort of Hollywood movie-style arsonist on the loose without empirical evidence is silly. Now, that being said, can some of them be arson? Of course, and particularly in this case, where professionals themselves told me in person that this fire is suspicious.

Just for reference, here is the fire insurance map from just after the building’s construction. John Kennard and Sons went out of business during the Great Depression, so I suspect Shapleigh moved in on their space no later than at that time.

Like many companies, Norvell-Shapleigh had an elegant office building downtown at Broadway and Third Street. If it hadn’t already been demolished, it fell for the construction of the elevated lanes of the Mark Twain Expressway in the 1950s.

The company’s history began in a small building on Main Street (Lenor K. Sullivan) in Laclede’s Landing on the block just north of the Eads Bridge, which, not surprisingly is a vacant lot today.