I made it back up to Alton for a little bit and checked out Public Square first. Easton Street, named after the founder of the city, intersects the square, and I suspect that originally it was planned to be a grand expanse surrounded by stores and whatnot. Instead, it is a quiet residential park, with…
Tag: Parks
Fountain Park, Revisited
Update: The Fountain Park neighborhood was severely damaged by the tornado in the afternoon of May 16, 2025. I first looked at Fountain Park way back in December of 2008, and its appearance has changed little. What is interesting is that the fountain in the middle was simplified at some point, as can be seen…
Millionaires’ Row, Revisited, Cairo
We finished up our tour of Cairo by revisiting Millionaires’ Row, which I still think is a weird name because there are not really that many mansions along it, and they’re not really that big, for that matter, befitting someone with a million or more dollars. First of all, what the heck happened to Riverlore,…
The Confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, Cairo
We took a break from exploring the town and headed down to Fort Defiance Park, which is at the very tip of the peninsula where the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers is located, to have lunch. It is important to note that the actual Civil War fort was not located here as this…
Don’t Fence Me In, St. Louis Edition
I want to tell you about a man you’ve never heard of outside of a news story last week, who died anonymously for unknown reasons less than a block from the center of our city’s government. My coworkers and I never knew the name his mother named him, but his nickname around City Hall was…
The Park at New Melle Lakes
Huh, this park sure looks like a golf course! It turns out it once was, and when it closed, it became a part of the St. Charles County Park System. The new park does have a disk golf course. It is curious the golf course closed considering the sport is becoming more popular in America,…
Krug Park and Two Cemeteries, St. Joseph
One of the focal points of St. Joseph is Krug Park, which is a fairly rugged plot of land on the northern side of the city. There is a system of parkways that connects much of the city (and is difficult to photograph) and they sweep around St. Joseph connecting parks such as Krug. In…
Civic Buildings, St. Joseph
The Buchanan County Courthouse in downtown St. Joseph is perhaps one of the most public impressive buildings I’ve seen in America. Constructed in 1873 and still largely identical in appearance other than its cupola (which now looks similar to the one in Lancaster, Wisconsin). Its sheer size, particularly in 1873 and second only to the…
Moorlands / Claverach Park
I almost certainly will go back, but I made a first foray into one of the most interesting and beautiful additions to Clayton, just west of Big Bend Boulevard and Forest Ridge and Southmoor, and south of Brentmoor. Developed by the Moorlands Land Company, Moorlands Park, now known as Claverach Park, was platted in May…
The Former Social Evils or Female Hospital
If the grass of Sublette Park could talk, it would have stories to tell. Most people don’t know this, but at one time in the 1870s, St. Louis dabbled in legalized prostitution. It didn’t last long, but one relic of that period was the Social Evils Hospital, or what later became known as the Female…