Wandering up Louisville Avenue up to Clayton Avenue, we realized we had drastically gone outside the boundaries of Franz Park (and I’ve already looked at that stretch of street before), so we turned down the short stretch of San Jacinto… Editor’s Note: Due to the website crashing in January of 2022, the text of this…
Tag: Dogtown
Louisville Avenue Between Dale and Clayton Avenues
Walking down Dale Avenue a little ways, formerly and appropriately Valley Road due to its path down a deep ravine, we then headed north up Louisville Avenue. Looking again at historic aerials from 1937, much of the west side of… Editor’s Note: Due to the website crashing in January of 2022, the text of this…
Fairmount Avenue, Franz Park
While still on Mitchell, it’s hard not to notice that something very dramatic is happening to the housing stock. There are more Cape Cods, on what was still farmland in 1937, according to historic aerial images. But then, whoa! Things… Editor’s Note: Due to the website crashing in January of 2022, the text of this…
Mitchell Avenue, Blackberry Ridge, The Glades, Benton, Franz Park
The heights of The Glades was known as Blackberry Ridge, and the area was laid out after the Civil War. It seems that the railroad station was named Benton due to an Irish immigrant having trouble saying the name The… Editor’s Note: Due to the website crashing in January of 2022, the text of this…
John J. Roe Elementary School
Sitting on the west side of Franz Park, John J. Roe Elementary School has existed in two forms over the last century. The first iteration was a Romanesque Revival school, as was typical of many of the more rural buildings in the system. It was replaced in 1919 by a design by Rockwell M. Milligan,…
Introduction to Franz Park, Dogtown
Ah, winter’s here, with plenty of cloudy skies. So the next week or so I’ll be looking at the Franz Park neighborhood, which I lump under the Greater Dogtown tag. It’s imperfect, and perhaps the Franz Park has a more… Editor’s Note: Due to the website crashing in January of 2022, the text of this…
Outlet of the River des Peres, Revisited
I’m endlessly fascinated by one of the largest public works projects in St. Louis history, which is the “harnessing,” for lack of a better word, of the River des Peres. While today, we would consider it to be a horrible ecological disaster, I think it is important to realize at the time and place in…
St. James the Greater Roman Catholic Church
Sitting on a dramatic hill on some of the highest ground in Dogtown, St. James the Greater is the Irish parish of St. Louis. Many other churches have held that title over the centuries: St. Patrick, St. Bridget of Erin, St. Leo, St. Lawrence O’Toole, St. Columbkille–but now we are left with St. James the…
Macklind Avenue Between Oakland and Manchester Avenues
I found myself wandering up Macklind Avenue north of Manchester Avenue, and there’s a unique group of post-World War II light industrial buildings. I’d love to know the story behind the two anachronistic doorways that flank the two sides of this first building. This building obviously dates earlier, probably to the 1930s. This, of course,…