Oregon Avenue Between Winnebago and Miami Streets, Gravois Park

Detail of Plate 34, Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis, 1876, Library of Congress.

Crossing over Winnebago Street, we come across another block of Oregon Avenue that was still relatively undeveloped in 1876. First we glance down Winnebago at some of the large buildings that dominate the north side of the street.

The housing stock on the west side of Oregon as we head north is wide and varied, reflecting its slow growth over the decades.

This house below confuses me: the front façade has clearly been altered with new fenestration, but was it a true half flounder originally? It appears to show up on Pictorial St. Louis.

Heading north, there are large houses, reflecting that this once was probably a fairly well-off block.

I don’t know what’s going on with the plastic draped over the front porch of this house, but it definitely is worth preserving.

Before we reach Miami, there are several “Cyclops” houses, as we see below.

The terrain is fairly rugged at Miami, and there is a steep hill on the east side of Oregon as we head back south.

The Arts and Crafts bungalows surely sit on the original lay of the land, and Oregon was cut deep into the hillside during street grading.

And that grading must have come late, even perhaps in the Twentieth Century due to the massive amounts of earth that was required to be moved.

Further down the hill going south, the houses return to the Nineteenth Century in style.

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