Update: With little fanfare, both Macy’s and the mall reopened after all in mid-May 2020. Macy’s eventually closed in November of 2020 before reopening a smaller store in Chesterfield Valley. I don’t think the Macy’s at Chesterfield Mall is going to reopen. Back after the Dillard’s was flooded due to a water main break, they announced…
Tag: West County
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…
Chesterfield Mall, The Weekend After Its Sale
Not many families come around to play at the St. Luke’s Hospital Play Area anymore, Dr. Ted E. Bear informed me on a recent visit to Chesterfield Mall. Play areas were never this cool when I was young. We chatted a bit, and I realized later my portrait of Dr. Bear actually ended up being…
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…
Bluff View Park
Opened on August 7, 2015, Bluff View Park off Old State Road is a wonderful new addition to St. Louis County Parks. There seems to be a previous history to the acreage, as there are the remnants of an old fence line with concrete posts that cuts through the property. And then, you come out…
Open Pit Mining and Rail Bridge, Rockwood Reservation, February 2020
I finally had the chance to go looking for the open pit clay mine I had seen in a historic photo at the Rockwoods Reservation visitors’ center. I found the piers for the narrow gauge railroad that had accessed the eastern open pit mine. As I had read, the cast concrete was created out of…
Quarry, Rockwoods Reservation, Revisited, February 2020
It was a beautiful unseasonably warm day yesterday, so I headed out to Rockwoods Reservation. I had heard some reports of devastating flash floods washing out trails and bridges, so I was not able to access the mines that I had photographed back in 2013. You can just see them through the trees below off…
Two Houses in Wildwood
There’s this genteel old house sitting out on St. Albans Road at Manchester Road, way out in Wildwood. It was built in 1913 by J.P. Connell, the president of the Glencoe Clay Company for $1,800. It was a nice house, with what looks to be stucco, and according to property records, is a wood frame…
Bethel United Methodist Church, Wildwood
Bethel United Methodist Church is a congregation whose roots go deep into the history of West County, all the way back to 1858. In fact, I did not realize it, but I had photographed its original stone church (last photo) on Wild Horse Creek Road years ago. There is an extensive cemetery that holds many…
St. John United Church of Christ
We realized we had never looked at St. John United Church of Christ up close, despite long admiring its unrivaled location sitting high upon a hill overlooking the intersection of Manchester and Sulphur Spring roads in Manchester. Of course, the United Church of Christ dates to 1957, when several Northern European Protestant denominations joined together….