I like a good mystery, and when I found a photograph of an unidentified residence on Miami Street by the dentist historian William Swekosky, my curiosity was piqued. Judging from the style of the architecture, which I would call Greek Revival, and assuming the street was correct, I narrowed the location down to the stretch of Miami between the river and Grand Boulevard in the St. Louis Commons (I discussed this area a couple of weeks ago).

Turning to Sanborn Fie Insurance Maps, I quickly located the house at 2306 Miami, in between Indiana and South Jefferson avenues. The red massing, indicating brick, with wood front porch, indicated in yellow, matched perfectly.

Sadly, a quick Google Maps search revealed it had been demolished for a parking lot for Concordia Press, one of several institutions that comprise what I call the “Lutheran Civic Center” at the intersection of Miami Street and South Jefferson Avenue.

I next looked at the paper plat for City Block 1653 and found something interesting; the lot on which the house sat was never part of any subdivision, indicating that is a very old parcel. Unlike the vast majority of properties in St. Louis, which are usually described as “Lot A of Block B of the Subdivision of C’s Property,” this parcel is rather described by its dimensions and relation to South Jefferson. This is really interesting! It was just parceled straight from Charles DeWard’s survey of the St. Louis Commons.

Next, I looked at Compton and Dry, from 1875, and quickly found the house, which shows that it was at least built by then, but again, I suspected it was much older, and considering its form–a central hall plan house, it could have been built before the Civil War. (By the way, houses this old would not have a building permit record.) I dug deeper.

Perhaps a little humorously, I discovered that the Missouri History Museum’s online database already had another image of the house labeled properly, as well as a deed history, and William Swekosky had it labeled as being owned by a John J. Outley. Another search revealed that a Charles, most likely John’s son, was in the first class of Washington University in 1881. Another book, a commemorative history of Holy Cross Church’s school, also stated that in 1851, the basement of the house served as the school temporarily. A couple of fascinating lithographs accompanied the history of the school, and the house at 2306 Miami can possibly be glimpsed on the left in the image below, but not for certain. The old Concordia Seminary, in its first iteration, can be viewed. The buildings would eventually be joined by a hospital, of course.