The massive former Butler Brothers warehouse and showroom has been rehabilitated and rechristened the Victor, an apartment building. It’s huge, and they wisely opened up some lightwells in the interior. Perhaps the most striking improvement is the front entrance, which had been heavily adulterated by previous blocking in of doorways. It has now been reopened…
Tag: Warehouses
Kosciusko, September 2024
I don’t know what possessed me to do it, but I thought I would try to find anything I missed in Kosciusko, the only neighborhood in St. Louis with an official population of zero. As I’ve written about in a popular St. Louis Magazine article, the whole area was almost completely annihilated by urban renewal…
Washington Boulevard Between North Compton and Garrison Avenues
Stretching out to the west of Jefferson Avenue was the massive Daniel D. Page Addition, which encompassed thousands of parcels, largely platted between 1858 and 1871. Page was the second mayor of St. Louis and he also was heavily involved in real estate. A substantial portion of what we now call Midtown was once owned…
Fires
The third weekend of July was rough in North St. Louis. First off, we lost a beautiful corner store at West Florissant and De Soto avenues, which I swear I’ve photographed and I also could swear was occupied with a second-hand appliance store if I remember correctly. It was destroyed by fire Saturday morning in…
View from the City Museum Roof
I was invited to a special event at the City Museum and when I made it up to the roof, I realized that the sunset was casting downtown and the rest of the city in a wonderful light. I waited until dusk and then took many of the same views again. Above and below is…
New Stray Rescue Sanctuary
I was excited to learn that Stray Rescue, which I’m sure many of my readers have heard of, is expanding to a new location in the Bevo neighborhood. For those who don’t know, Stray Rescue saves dogs and cats left on the streets, many of which are in severe distress. They’re a great organization and…
Suspicious Fire, Former Federal Cold Storage Company
Update: A second, severe fire broke out inside the warehouse in October 2024; due to the unique construction of the building with cork insulation, it was demolished to extinguish the fire. Demolition began less than a week after the last fire was extinguished. It wasn’t publicized in the news, but if you were watching the…
Around the Family Farm, Spring 2024
I checked up on the family farm east of Peoria in Central Illinois the last weekend of April, and things were looking good even if the fields were very wet, delaying spring planting. It was very windy, and it was alternating sunny and cloudy all day long. No longhorns could be spotted at the neighbor’s…
The Stockyards and Industry Today, St. Joseph
Opening in 1887, the St. Joseph Stockyards was just one indication of the importance of the city to the burgeoning trade in the West. It once stretched to 413 acres and moved a half million animals a year in the 1920s. A beautiful exchange building sat at the front door, and according to my research,…
The Other Gateway to the West: St. Joseph
I was giving a lecture in St. Joseph, Missouri, in the northwestern corner of the state, and lo and behold, I found one of the most architecturally rich cities in the Midwest, if not in the whole United States. Powered by immense stockyards and industry that dwarfed Kansas City to the south for most of…