We returned to the zombie subdivision in Wildwood that was one of the victims of the housing crash back in 2008 (remember that–it seems a million years ago now). It’s actually sort of interesting to see how the real estate market dealt with this problem. Off Crescent Road, individual homeowners have simply bought the adjacent…
Tag: Wildwood
Dr. Edmund E. Babler Memorial State Park
Sculptor Charles Keck produced this handsome monument of Dr. Edmund Babler out in the state park that bears his name. I could have sworn I already photographed this park at some point, but I guess I was wrong. Babler is way out west, in the middle of Wildwood, and I’m glad it’s here, because it…
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 on 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…
Westland Acres
Update: The sale of the property mentioned in this post did not happen, but individual parcels are still for sale. Due to an eagle-eyed reader, I learned recently that the historic freedmen’s settlement of Westland Acres recently sold for a substantial amount of money. Inhabited by the descendants of freed slaves for generations, I suspect…
Historic Pond Drying Up
Remember last year when I posted about all the great historic, if abandoned buildings out in Pond, a small hamlet along Manchester Road in Wildwood? Well, the historic Pond Hotel was demolished, and so was the Italianate farmhouse I documented.