We hit several towns along the lower Des Moines River in Iowa last weekend to examine the economic ties that riverboats once served with the area and St. Louis. The first town, Bentonsport, was laid out in 1839 and was named after Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton. It actually reached a population of 1,000 and…
Crunden Martin, On the Cusp of Redevelopment
There is a slight chance that the redevelopment of the Crunden Martin buildings might actually happen this time, and I’m cautiously optimistic due to the involvement of some people I know in the project. Looking at the building damaged by fire over a decade ago, it looks like there has been the loss of much…
A Second and Final Fire, Federal Cold Storage Company
Demolition began less than a week after the last fire was extinguished. Back in May of this year, I commented on the little-noticed fire at the former Federal Cold Storage Warehouse on North Broadway. I had remarked that a fire in such warm weather was suspicious. While the weather was cold the last couple of…
Viaducts, Trestles and Bridges, Chouteau’s Landing
Wandering around the vacant lot where the former Powell Square Building was located before it was demolished in Chouteau’s Landing, I was struck at just how much infrastructure there is clogging this part of the city. Perhaps it is a necessary evil, needed to move commerce and industry around the center of the city for…
Saint Mary of Victories
I realized I have never done a post on St. Mary of Victories down on Chouteau’s Landing, just across South 3rd Street to the east of Interstates 44 and 55. I wrote an article about the church several years ago at St. Louis Magazine. As can be seen above, the church was once part of…
House Springs, Jefferson County
Update: National Register property added in March of 2026. I stumbled onto the original small community of House Springs, which is built right on Gravois Road in Jefferson County. Route 30, which is frequently associated with Gravois, has been reoriented to the north and is four lane, divided highway in this area. Apparently some of…
James O’Fallon House, Barnhart
An audience member at one of my recent lectures alerted me to a very exciting house that I had never heard of built by James O’Fallon, brother of John O’Fallon, who of course was one of the wealthiest members of St. Louis before the Civil War (and has a gigantic family plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery)….
Nebraska Avenue Between Cherokee and Utah Streets, Revisited
I looked at this block of Nebraska Avenue back in March of 2020, and it’s interesting to see how things have changed. The four-family above has been renovated to some extent, and the building below, which was a burned out shell, has now been rehabbed and should be inhabited sometime soon. The building below looks…
Oregon Avenue Between Cherokee and Utah Streets
Heading north of Cherokee Street on Oregon Avenue, we see this simple house above, which intrigues me; it clearly once had a front porch which had been lost. Then we see some of those one story bungalows with the huge window in the front that my friends years ago named “Cyclops Houses.” I think the…
California Avenue Between Cherokee and Utah Streets
Passing by another parking lot which is usually empty, we head up California Avenue, which has older houses, mostly in the Second Empire style. This first building is one of those interesting Mansard roofed examples where the original fenestration of the Second Empire is giving way to later styles such as the Romanesque Revival, which…