This is the second of three weeks on Thursdays and Fridays, where I’ll be looking at the three east-west streets parallel to Cherokee Street in Gravois Park, the neighborhood to the south of the famous commercial artery. This is where the east-west streets are “Indian Tribes” and the north-south streets are the “State Streets.” See Potomac Street from last week.

Much of St. Louis east of Grand was built in the Twentieth Century, regardless of how famous Nineteenth Century St. Louis was, or the fact the city was founded in the Eighteenth Century.

No more obvious is that in Gravois Park, where there are whole rows of apartments and houses that date to the first couple of decades of the 1900s, and many of which date to the interwar years, when the city was rapidly filling up its boundaries.

There are some real gems down in the “Compton Valley” as I call it, where the east-west streets slope down from Jefferson, and before they head back up towards Grand.

Sadly, there is also abandonment, as can be seen below.

But there are also some very well maintained houses along this stretch.

And there are these beautiful corner stores, such as this one below, where two diamonds of white and green glazed brick replace a window on the second floor. Why it was done is forgotten, but it is so interesting.

Those interested in learning more about my research of the Lemp family and their brewery can attend my lecture at the Missouri History Museum in conjunction with Johnny Rabbit’s Supernatural St. Louis, Tuesday, October 30, 2018 at 10:30 in the Lee Auditorium.