Updated: Thanks to Lynn Josse, I have learned more about the long, dilapidated building pictured above and below; it was the Pond Hotel, and you can read about its plight here. Unfortunately, the Pond Hotel has been torn down, as of July 22, 2013. Historic photograph of the cycling club in front of the monument…
Tag: Wildwood
Grover, Wildwood
Grover is a small hamlet out old Route 66–the first route–more commonly known as Manchester Road. There are still a fair number of houses left, including these two very old and rustic cottages, as well as a couple of businesses. Thankfully, when Highway 100 was rerouted, it spared the town and its nearby western neighbor…
Glencoe, Wildwood
Down the narrow, tree lined roads of Wildwood, in far western St. Louis County, are numerous small unincorporated towns, now part of the largest city by square mileage in the region. Glencoe was one such small town, focused on the mining and lime industries now contained within Rockwood Reservation along the Meramec River. At one…
Old Slave Road, Revisited
Update: There was an effort to change the name of the road in 2013. The Wildwood City Council voted to keep the name in 2013; a new effort changed the name to Elijah Madison. I drove back by Old Slave Road, and was surprised to see that the road is now signed with its historic…
Tyler-Coleman Cemetery
I found an old cemetery out in Babler State Park; dating from the early 19th Century to the mid 20th, it represents a broad cross-section of different types of grave markers over the last two centuries. It also reminds us that the area has been settled for much longer than it sometimes seems.
Where does Church Road Go?
Back in college, I became friends with several people who lived in Wildwood. On several occasions, I drove by Church Road, which branches off of Strecker Road in far West County. I learned later that the road leads to one of the few remaining rural African American communities that sprouted up after the Civil War….
St. Paul Road
Update: Sorry about the really low quality of some of these pictures; the road is incredibly narrow and there really is nowhere to stop; I also like to think I’ve gotten a little bit better and taking photographs since 2007. For better pictures and information in later posts see this post from 2013 and this…