I’ve looked at the greater Frenchtown area before, particularly the part known as LaSalle Park, a neighborhood left behind after the streets around it were annihilated in urban renewal. We’re going to look at one last remnant, the south side of Rutger Street in between South 11th and Tucker Boulevard today, seen above highlighted in a red box (click to see the image larger), and below in the detail in the center.
Back in 1876, the area was still filling in and a grove of trees seen in Compton and Dry’s Pictorial St. Louis shows that Rutger Street, then known as Autumn Street, had not been cut through. This was the 1837 Morton Addition (note that future 12th Street was named that originally) and the streets all had seasons for names; one block to the north was Winter Street, though today it’s Morrison Avenue. South 11th was Stoddard.
But as can be seen, by 1908, the neighborhood was completely filled in with houses, and was a bustling working class quarter. Lebanese immigrants, fleeing the Ottoman Empire, would make the area their home, and St. Raymond’s Maronite Church was nearby.
Rutger Street took over Autumn in the name standardization blitz of the 1880s, I presume. Also note, the south side of Rutger never had an alley but always had Park Avenue as its backyard.
But just look at one of the houses we lost on the north side, right at the northwest corner with South 11th Street. Dr. Kinner lived from 1840 to 1917, and his house was apparently designed by Ernst Janssen, who also is responsible for many of the houses in Compton Heights. He is interred at the Missouri Crematorium and Columbarium.
These houses are amazing, and proof that whatever the condition of what was torn down could have been saved as well. Just imagine Lafayette Square being five times larger!
Trees were sort of in the way but I think you can still see the beauty.
The 1100 and 1200 blocks of Rutger were actually combined and the latter was destroyed for Tucker Boulevard’s expansive right-of-way. But we can imagine.
This house was just across 13th Street.
