Sitting on a ridge that gives its name to Cathedral Hill, the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Joseph dominates the eastern end of the slope. Surrounded by intact urban fabric, the cathedral’s brick exterior blends in well with the neighborhood. The building below functions as the offices for the cathedral as well as a food…
Tag: Renaissance Revival
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…
Downtown St. Joseph
Downtown St. Joseph is quite nice, with minimal amount of land turned over to pointless parking lots. There are many buildings being renovated, and there are many interesting businesses. There is this huge mural on the side of a wall where there is a parking lot. If there is cause for concern is that there…
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 Pony Express and Patee House, St. Joseph
Moving up into the hills of St. Joseph, we encounter the Patee House Hotel (pronounced “Pay-tea,” no accent on the first e), which played a critical role as the offices for the Pony Express and is now an eclectic and fun museum. Heavily influenced by an early Italianate style, the most stylish hotel in St….
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…
Former Missouri Pacific Hospital
I’d heard of railroad hospitals, and the name seemed self-explanatory in that they were hospitals that served the huge number of employees in a dangerous industry, but I had no idea that they were such a critical part of St. Louis employment history and national history, as well. Interestingly, they were primarily in the west…
Around Saint Louis University Hospital
The heights around the intersection of Chouteau and Grand have long been the location of healing institutions going back over one hundred years. The Bethesda Hospital group still exists, and this was actually its second location. It was located right around here just west of Grand on Vista. The landscape has definitely changed, with the…
Lemp Malt Kiln Update
Update: Deconstruction continued in May of 2024. There was a partial collapse of the upper floors of the Lemp Brewery malt kiln recently, which as I wrote at St. Louis Magazine, was constructed in the 1880s. I believe it further proves the point of the owner, Shashi Palamand, and myself that the right course of…
Halloween at the Lemp Brewery
I went to the Lemp Brewery haunted house in mid October, which gave me the chance to take some bad photos of the place at night. It’s pretty fun to walk around the place at night, with lights giving a nice perspective on the architecture. You enter the cellars under the brew house, and then…