We’re going to dive into some pretty deep esoterica with our examination of Quinette Road, which was the original name for Big Bend Road between its modern day intersection with Marshall Road and Meramec Station Road. If you look at the old 1862 Hutawa Map, you can see the path of Quinette Road along the numbers 7 through 10. The one clue of the former name was Quinette Cemetery, which we looked at back in January of 2021, which took its name from the road that once passed by the burial ground (and is now named Old Big Bend Road after the thoroughfare was straightened). We can assume that in an effort to standardize road names, Big Bend muscled out Quinette at some point, probably in the early Twentieth Century.

But interestingly, one small section of Quinette Road survives, due to the Missouri Pacific Railroad building a railroad trestle at some point before the 1930s when aerial photography showed it complete, creating a new orientation for Big Bend Road to the north.

Consequently, the old right-of-way of Quinette Road was left behind, along with its historical name where it went up and over the railroad tracks.

Oliver Quinette, the man after which the road is named, owned property at the end of Big Bend Road, where it terminated at Meramec Station Road. He also developed a small town named Quinette; thus, it was logical to name the road that lead to the town after his namesake, as well. We’ll look at the relics of the town of Quinette in the future, which was dedicated on February 17, 1859. Quinette was a French American immigrant who came to St. Louis in 1832 and was a large stockholder in the Missouri Pacific Railroad, so perhaps it was logical that he was developing land along its right-of-way even though he lived in the City. Interestingly, Quinette actually was on board the train and survived the infamous Gasconade River disaster where a large number of prominent St. Louis citizens died in 1855. As a bit of editorializing, I still think that the loss of those St. Louisans set back the growth of the city forever.

On the west end of that Quinette spur, there is a driving range and miniature golf course. The bridge that once took Quinette Road over a creek is now gone. Back when I was young, there was an elderly man who sold hubcaps at the end of the road at the railroad tracks.