I originally looked at the eastern entrance of the West Barrett Tunnel back in December of 2013. I felt it was time to do some more investigation and find the western entrance. Supposedly this tunnel and its eastern mate are the oldest train tunnels west of the Mississippi River. As I wrote back in 2013,…
Crunden-Martin, Destroyed
Update: The ruins were demolished in the summer of 2026. “It’s Thanksgiving, so the fires will be starting now,” someone remarked on social media–I recall reading somewhere. What a far too accurate portent. I woke up on Black Friday, and sadly, they were right. Crunden Martin, that stunning abandoned warehouse/factory complex I’ve looked at around…
Clemens Avenue Between Hodiamont and Hamilton Avenues, West End
We looked at the Sanborn for this block yesterday, which showed that by 1909 was already largely built out. It’s a mix of wood frame and brick homes, many of which show the rehabbing that has occurred in the last ten years in the West End. Perhaps what is most noteworthy is the wide range…
Enright Avenue Between Hodiamont and Hamilton Avenues, West End
Originally known as Von Versen but changed due to anti-German sentiment, we’ll now look at the last block of Enright between Hodiamont, basically the last street of the West End and Hamilton Avenue. In the winter of 1887, Julius Pitzman was platting the Hamilton Place Addition. But as can be seen in the above fire…
Cabanne Avenue Between Goodfellow Boulevard and Porter Mall, West End
Two large wood frame houses greeted the visitor when they entered Cabanne Avenue back in 1909; they’re both gone now. I believe those wood frame houses were replaced by these apartments, which in turn were demolished, as well. This block is much harder hit by demolition and vacant lots. There are a few houses left…
Cates Avenue Between Hamilton Avenue and Goodfellow Boulevard, West End
You can see the Sanborn map for Cates in between Hamilton Avenue and Goodfellow Boulevard from yesterday. There has been a massive amount of demolition and in-fill on this block, but there are still some very nice houses left. In general, there are more brick houses than one block to the north on Cabanne Avenue…
Cabanne Avenue Between Goodfellow Boulevard and Hamilton Avenue, West End, Revisited
The fire insurance map above from 1909 captures an important moment in history for the West End; the neighborhood was still suburban in nature and it was a time before the apartment buildings would be built, taking advantage of the large parcels that once held stately wood frame houses built in the previous decades when…
Cates Avenue Between Goodfellow Boulevard and Porter Mall, West End
Moving one block north to Cates Avenue between Goodfellow Boulevard and Ruth Porter Mall, there are more houses still standing, but the Church of the Ascension, which we can see on the fire insurance map above, is nothing but a vacant lot now. Interestingly, while historically Cabanne Way doglegged behind the backyards, today the mall…
Clemens Avenue Between Hamilton Avenue and Porter Park, West End
We head down Goodfellow Boulevard from Walnut Park to reach the West End, one of my favorite neighborhoods in the City. It was incredibly rural, as Pictorial St. Louis shows, in 1876. But by the early Twentieth Century, it had filled in with posh wood frame and brick houses of St. Louis’s professional and managerial…
Emma and Lucille Avenues Between Mimika Avenue and Goodfellow Boulevard, Walnut Park West
We save what I found to be the most interesting part of Walnut Park, which is actually older but further away from downtown St. Louis. This is the Jennings Heights Addition, from 1888, almost twenty years older than the West Walnut Park subdivision to the southeast that we looked at previously. As can be seen…