Pine Lawn is one of the many small inner ring suburbs just outside the boundaries of the City of St. Louis along Natural Bridge Road and Jennings Station Road forms a north-south “spine,” so to speak. The name comes from the estate, one of many out this way, of Charles Clark, of which only the carriage house was photographed. It has been demolished and was located south of Natural Bridge Road.
As can be seen in these plat maps, the modern day suburb of Pine Lawn is made up of a series of subdivisions laid out in the early Twentieth Century accessible via the Pine Lawn station of a street car line that ran out this way. McDermott’s 1st and 2nd Edgewood Park subdivisions formed the bulk of the suburb west of Jennings Station, while a patchwork of smaller ones filled up the area up to the city limits. As can also be seen, there was an Edgewood station further up the streetcar line.
The commercial hub of the town is along Natural Bridge, where there are many vacant buildings but also a few operating ones.
This would have been the area right outside the streetcar station, which logically would have been where people would have stepped off and done some shopping before walking home.
The residential area is hilly, and features houses from the 1910s and 1920s for the most part, which would be logical for when it was developed by real estate investors.
There are a few apartment buildings but for the most part there are small bungalows.
While there are many vacant lots…
…the not-for profit Beyond Housing has been building a lot of new housing in the area.
There is still a lot of work to do. Pine Lawn is located just off Interstate 70, so it should be a place that is convenient to downtown St. Louis.
I know your time is limited and as all your work is voluntary it would not be kind to ask for more. So all I can say is nice photos and I wish there where more.
My grandfather built his home in Pine Lawn with his own hands. I was there when an infant and barely remember it. Soon after, he and his family moved to St Charles. That home I do remember. He was a street car conductor in St Louis. I have a photo of the home, a concrete block building. Very plain. Some one had written a street address on the back of the photo, but no such 6515 Ledore Lane exists in St. Louis. Or anywhere else on earth, as far as Google Maps knows.
Thank you for the blurb on Pine Lawn. I lived there until 1965 when my Parents move our family to University. City . I was o ly 8 years old but remember Pine Lawn well. We went to St. Paul the Apostle church and school. Highlights in cluded Goody Goody diner,Eds white front bbq,Sam the watermelon man outdoor fruit stand, hodges roller skating rink, Katz drug store, , A&P, Woolworths, A bakery on Jennings Road by St. Pauls school/ chur ch. The house I grew up in is still standing 3914 Philbrook. Alice’s Confectionary was down the street. I used to think of adjacent North Woods as the rich area!
You can enjoy the website of Ed’s White Front BBQ. Put online by his grandson. See:
https://edswhitefront.com/#Carousel