The former Bellevue Brewery sits high up on a hill above Central Parkway, the former Miami and Ohio Canal. Ironically, this was originally the back of the building. But of course, it might seem logical that industry would grow up along the canal, though I wonder how much utility the waterway really provided by the…
Tag: Historic Roads
Lake Sherwood
Note: The streets around Lake Sherwood are private. I recently was invited to visit Lake Sherwood in Overland, which is an artificially created lake created by the Laughlin Family. Henry Laughlin had originally acquired the property that was the headwaters of the River des Peres–yes the same River des Peres that empties out into the…
Merchant Street
Probably almost nobody in St. Louis remembers Merchant Street, and the bustling community that once lined its two blocks between Second Street and South Broadway. Originally named Carondelet Street, it was basically wiped away in the urban renewal plan for what we now call the Kosciusko neighborhood, but for over a century it represented the…
The Crossroads, Wentzville
You’re looking at the intersection of two famous roads: Highway 40, which started as the National Road, and Highway 61, immortalized for its role in world music. Of course, this is no longer that intersection, as Highway 61 is now on a viaduct high above the ground, and Highway 40 now shares its names with…
Lindell Boulevard Water Main Break, Part II
There was another major water main break on Lindell Boulevard near, but not in the exact same spot as the one last summer at almost the exact same time of year. Hot temperatures do that to aging infrastructure. I went out yet again to get interesting insights into the construction of Lindell, and again I…
St. Clair Avenue/Lincoln Trail, Revisited
There’s something fascinating about St. Clair Avenue as it comes up out of East St. Louis; as it hits the community of French Village, it starts the climb “up the hill,” which are really river bluffs (and carry both a literal and figurative connotation in the life and politics of the East Side), where the…
New and Old Wilson Road
Nowadays, Wilson Road in Chesterfield curves to hook up with Clarkson Woods Drive at a stop light with Clarkson Road, which dates back to the widening of what is MO340. But it wasn’t always like that. In fact, back in 1878, when Julius Pitzman published his atlas of St. Louis County (I could have sworn…
Old State Road
Old State Road follows a ridge line through the foot hills, providing a link from Manchester Road near Ellisville down to Eureka. I imagine it is a very old road. It appears in Julius Pitzmann’s famous map of St. Louis County from right after the Civil War. There are many interesting old houses and barns…
The Bend in Gravois Avenue
Many of my longtime readers probably know by now that major arteries such as Gravois or North Florissant were widened due to a bond issue passed by voters back in the first decades of the Twentieth Century. Amazingly, Gravois Avenue was a two-lane street before this. But what you might not realize is that between…
Lindell Boulevard Water Main Break
Update: There was a water main break nearby in July of 2020. I imagine everyone in the St. Louis region, and perhaps even some outside, heard about the breakage of the 30 inch cast iron water main under Lindell Boulevard, just east of Union Boulevard where Park Road cuts off for a short distance. I…