Where there is now a Walgreen’s, a McDonald’s, a gas station and an entrance ramp onto Interstate 64/Highway 40, there was once a small town named Gumbo, which lay in the larger area known as Gumbo Flats, rechristened Chesterfield Valley nowadays. Settlement occurred out here early with the Long Family being prominent; Chesterfield Airport Road…
Tag: Gas Stations
St. Louis Avenue, JeffVanderLou, Winter 2024
I had originally headed west on St. Louis Avenue based on an unfounded tip that Sarah Lou’s had caught fire. Thankfully, it had not, and I ended up having a great conversation with an older gentleman waiting for the bus out front about the restaurant’s amazing fried chicken instead. Sadly, from the looks of it,…
Wally’s, Fenton
Coming back from a wonderful lecture on the history of the John Busch Brewery at the Washington Historical Society, I thought it would be fun to stop at Wally’s Great American Roadtrip in Fenton off Interstate 44. It is huge! Just look at all of those gas pumps! I assume this is Wally? Your kids…
Updates on the Northeast Side
There has been a major collapse of the service wing of the former Jewish Orthodox Old Home. I have been tracking its deterioration, and the last time I photographed this portion of the building, in January of 2021 (second photo), it was already looking unstable. I wonder if the repeated lashing of severe weather recently…
Sinclair Dinosaur Sighting, Hazleton, Iowa
This Sinclair Dinosaur looks like it had been getting its party on before we spotted it in Hazleton, Iowa. This is now the second sighting in about a month, and about a year after we saw another one in Northeast Iowa. The earliest and last time in St. Louis that we spotted one was way…
Central Park, Galesburg, Illinois
Look at the above postcard from the late Nineteenth Century, with a view down Main Street, which we looked at yesterday. An intact, intimate urban space with even a streetcar going by. It’s not like that anymore. As we walk down Main Street in Galesburg, crossing over Cherry Street, we see the parking lots and…
Commercial Buildings, Main Street, Ste. Genevieve
When I first put these photographs together, I thought this initial building was a storefront, but on closer inspection, despite its façade’s parapet wall, it does in fact appear to be a single family house. This building below is definitely a storefront, with a cast iron column holding up the corner of the front façade….
Gravois Avenue From Bates Street to Gertrude Avenue, Bevo
Gravois Avenue in Bevo has one of the best preserved commercial strips in the city, and I took a stroll along it a couple weekends ago. Further up Gravois, southwest and northeast of Grand Boulevard, the avenue is scarred by parking lots for car dealerships, while in Bevo there are only a couple, thank the…
Arsenal Street Between Ohio and South Jefferson Avenues, North Side
Why? Just why? We cross over Ohio Avenue as we continue our trek east down Arsenal Street, looking at the north side of the major east-west thoroughfare. We looked at the south side of the street back in May of 2022. I was actually pleasantly surprised with how this business cleaned up and reopened this…
Pennsylvania Avenue Between Haven and Fillmore Streets, Carondelet
Leaving behind Haven Street, formerly Nebraska, which we’ve looked at before back in March of 2021, we then see newer construction, including an early Twentieth Century gas station and then even more recent in-fill. Beyond Mott Street, formerly Malt and Miller streets, the next block is completely dominated by the retaining walls of the Sisters…