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> LINDSAY: Good morning, everyone. I'm Lindsay Newton, the Director Of Community
Engagement at the Missouri Historical Society. Thank you for joining us virtually for Missouri
History Live. We are glad to be here. Welcome. I know that some watching today are Missouri
Historical Society members. Thank you. We are grateful for your support. And if you are not a member, we would love
for you to consider joining today. You can see a link to the website in the chat
box. We also sincerely thank our city and county
residents for your tax contributions through the Museum Tax District. All of the support is greatly appreciated. So today's presentation will be roughly 20
minutes long followed by 10 minutes for questions and answers. We will be using the Q&A button in the toolbar,
and we would prefer you wait until the end after the presentation to type in the questions
so we are sure not to miss them. And we will do our best, but we may not have
time to get to all of our questions. And lastly, closed captioning is being provided
today. Again, you have a toolbar. And you can scroll over the closed caption
button to turn on that feature. Now I will turn over to our speaker for today's
talk Hidden in Plain Sight presented by our Community Tours Manager, Amanda Clark. Enjoy! >> AMANDA: Thank you, Lindsay. Hello, everybody. As Lindsay said, I'm Amanda Clark, and I'm
the Community Tours Manager. A program that once we are all able to hang
out in person means that I will be taking you on walking and eventually bus tours of
different neighborhoods and featuring different topics and themes and hopefully showing people
a side of St. Louis that they have never seen before. So and we will do that today on this program. Today's program is Hidden in Plain Sight. It will last about 20 minutes, and it was
totally inspired by my love of exploring every single nook and cranny of the city and finding
buildings off the beaten path and with great history attached to them. None of the buildings in the presentation
today are necessarily landmarks. They are not buildings that are in guidebooks. They are nothing that you will see a big presentation
given on until today. So many of them this is -- for a couple of
them, this is their first time out, actually, being shown off. And some of them aren't buildings. Some are structures that we pass every day
and have no idea what giant history they connect us to into our bigger city. Instead of driving around in a bus or walking
around on foot, today we will kind of fly around the city and we will drop in on some
really cool little hidden spots and all spots in the city. A little bit in downtown. University City and South St. Louis as well. But first, a teaser, and a kind of riddle. The building that is on the screen there is
a building that none of us has ever seen, and yet one that all of us have seen. If you live in St. Louis, you can't miss it. If you have seen a picture of the Arch you
can't miss this building, but none of us have seen it unless you see a photograph. I promise to do a review of the building at
the end. Before we get to our buildings, I couldn't
help but do a little overview of the city. So if you look at the riverfront, and I want
to do an overview of the great transformation that happened in downtown St. Louis. Not only are we going to fly around today,
but we're also going to time travel. So I need you to get in a time traveling mindset,
and that is what this little thing is going to do. Turn of the century St. Louis riverfront. Up as close to the river as possible. The city is really -- would be in the water
if we could. And then you see in the 20th century, you
see a change over to this, which is the late 1960's. You have the arch that has just been built. The old Busch Stadium. And up to the north, the public housing, federal
housing project. All big huge things. And the image of St. Louis before it looks
like it does today. Throughout the program we will visit about
four or five other sites, and none as big and as encompassing as this image. Let's head off on the first flight. As all things in St. Louis should do, they
start at the Arch. And then we will go from there. We will head down into south St. Louis in
to -- not quite -- we will go to this very unassuming building here. Even just kind of zoom in a little bit, and
get you up close to see it. If you were looking at this building, we would
be standing on Broadway looking towards the river. The river is on the other side of that building. There is a bluff, and you would be looking
over into Illinois. So we settled in front of what is now known
as the Geitner Home, a senior living facility. It has been known as the Geitner Home since
1939 and has a huge -- the building itself has a huge connection to not only St. Louis
sports history but Olympic history as well. So let's time travel back to the 1930's. We'll fly one more time down there. There we go. We will time travel to the 1930's. And this is the building as it looked before
it was the Geitner Home. What you are looking at is the last of the
major clubhouse boathouses for the Western Rowing Club. Around the 1860's, St. Louis started getting
rowing clubs and this was an eastern sport. St. Louis is considered one of the last east
coast cities, and rowing is definitely one of those east coast sports or one that normally
associated with Philadelphia and New York, Boston. Well, St. Louis was on a national stage when
it came to rowing as well. We had up to nine teams at one time, different
clubhouses, boathouses. One of them, the St. Louis Rowing Club, founded
in 1875, is still active. You can still be a member and they row on
Creve Coeur Lake. The building was the last of the clubhouses
for the Western Rowing Club, one of the more successful of all of the rowing clubs they
had. In 1901, they were the national champions
in several different amateur, different races. The races are broken down by eight-man and
four-man. When they had a regatta race on the Mississippi
River, they had up to 4,000 to 5,000 people lining the riverfront to watch the races. The big cups, the trophies, the two big ones
are actually provided by the beer barons. A Faust cup and one where one of the brewer
-- the big brewers bet $100 that the Western Rowing Club couldn't make it across the river
in two minutes, and they did. He had to pay them up. An interesting connection to beer history
in St. Louis and rowing. The painting you are seeing there is the first
boathouse on the river. And then later they moved into the building
that we saw. The boats would have been held closer to the
river. And the big boathouse that we saw the image
before had bowling alleys and dance hall and places to have events and things like that. So you see a ribbon towards the bottom, and
that is where the Western Rowing Club placed in the World's Fair Regatta. Of four that raced, three were from St. Louis. They also had Central Rowing Club and the
Modock and a huge list of them. You can't tell I'm a little obsessed with
rowing. The Olympic -- however, the Olympic events
were not held on the Mississippi River. They were held at Creve Coeur Lake. I found a great Post Dispatch editorial about
why rowing would not -- why St. Louis was a strange city for rowing. And one of the reasons it gave was that the
water was too muddy and the riverfront didn't have any parks on it. But we had all of these men that were returning,
you know, from east coast colleges and universities and they wanted to continue their sports. People stayed active in the club and went
-- in the 1940's most members were off to war and the club was disbanded then. There was talk after the war about reviving
the club, but that did not happen. Just again, to compare the two buildings. This is one of those finds that I was looking
for something totally unrelated and when I found this I jumped out of my chair because
I love finding these little pieces of history hiding. Okay. So let's head off on our next flight. This is also going to take us into south St.
Louis. And unexpectedly also going to take us to
Olympic history. That was unintended. You are in you Dutchtown and looking a the
Saint Alexis Hospital. The bright yellow building I found when I
was researching one of the last programs I gave on the St. Louis medical history. Across the street, this building is a Lutheran
hospital. And when I was studying that building, I couldn't
help but notice this bright yellow thing and wanted to know what the story is on that. I notice that the address, I found that I
had -- I was looking at Southwest Potomac and Ohio. If you are not familiar with the phrase Turnverein,
it is a German American gymnastics club, and there were several scattered throughout St.
Louis neighborhoods since we were a center for a large German population. And those that belonged are called Turners
and they are a major part of the German experience. Not only community, classes, fitness and meeting
spaces. Many of the individuals had their own teams
and they would compete against each other which is where we come to the 1904 Olympics. This was unintended but, most things in St.
Louis history make their way to 1904. So we will -- we can't -- we couldn't find
any images of this building so I decided we would time travel within Google maps there. The Olympic history section says that the
west Turnverein team took home the silver and the bronze medals. They were -- they went up against New York
and made their way through the competition and so they were medalists. And the competition itself was contested and
they were then gold medalists. And then an extra cool thing about this is
one of their team members, a man named Frank Kugler, is still the only man to medal in
three different sports at an Olympic games. He is there in that picture somewhere, and
he was from the southwest Turnverein. Okay. So we will leave this bright yellow building. Again, at Ohio and Potomac in Dutchtown and
we will fly a little north from here. We will go to close to Soulard. Between the Soulard neighborhood and downtown
St. Louis. Right here. One of those things, this is the first time
it is being brought out. About eight or nine years ago, I was on a
walk down this street and I noticed that plaque over to the left. While I couldn't get in close enough on Google
maps to show you what it says. We will go somewhere else for the time travel. And I will explain the plaque. So many of us there are familiar with the
decrepit train tracks. If you are at a ball game, you may see them. Time travel back to the turn of the century. The municipal bridge in the distance that
was built after the Eaves Bridge. That was meant to be the free bridge. The plaque that I found nestled underneath
the overpass commemorates in 1953 the completion of elevated tracks and grade crossing projects
throughout the city. As a modern St. Louisian I had to kind of
wrap my head around what a grade crossing meant. A grade crossing is where a train whether
a freight train, passenger train, slow moving train, it is where it crosses at street level. This was a major problem throughout American
cities. And it still is something that is a bit of
a concern but nothing like it was in early St. Louis and into the mid 20th century. These are a few of the images I was able to
find in historic newspapers. Every year you would see a plea for the city
to provide money to either elevate tracks or lower tracks and build a bridge over them. As that movement pushed forward in 1920, there
was a bond issue passed that provided a good amount of money to get this done. But what is an interesting thing is that actually
went to court, all of these things went to court and there were lawsuits between the
railroad companies and the city and the root of the lawsuits is who was going to pay for
this? Whose fault? The train that hits the car or the car that
drives in front of the train? So who is responsible for this cost that it's
going to take? Ultimately that kind of got divided depending
on the crossing. So the crossings that you see that we initially
saw downtown are kind of quiet now and no longer an issue. The one on the right there, the historic image
of the two cars waiting there, that is at Delmar. This is one of those dangerous crossings that
was the site of several very deadly wrecks. Not just, you know, automobiles but street
cars and things like that. And what would happen, it is not just that
a car would race a train. That happened as well. But you may have one train coming for a long
time passing in front of your automobile and when it passes and you think you are ready
to go another train would be coming the opposite direction really fast and that caused a lot
of the accidents. So that historic image that I showed before
that Wabash and Delmar crossing was solved by the Wabash train station you are seeing
here. They elevated, created via duct over the train. The metro link red line runs underneath here. They touted at the time that they did the
building project that they did not slow down a single train in building that station and
that via duct for the trains to run under. The image in the upper right are double Decker
buses. And street cars running along that viaduct
long Delmar avenue and there is the station in the lower right. Kind of give you an image. I'm going to pivot us east looking towards
downtown. Pretty common for St. Louisians, a spot that
is very easy to drive past and see on a regular basis. Okay. So for our next spot, we're going to not fly
very far. We are actually just going to fly up Delmar
just a little bit. And this one was one that I just blew me away
like when I found it. Again, this is the first time I have seen
it mentioned anywhere and I can't believe that I didn't -- that we didn't know this
or that I didn't know this. So this building here driven past it a million
times. Headed up and down -- headed up and down Delmar. Looks like a nondescript apartment building
with retail in the lower levels. What it is, though, it is the Delmonte Theater
built in 1920. A silent movie theater with a hotel on top. The reason this is cool and historic it was
at the time the largest single level -- so the theater was on the lower level. It is the largest in the world. And it seated 3,000 people in its auditorium
in the movie house. You see in the lower left image. In the middle you see the Delmonte hotel and
theater. It was furnished fully by one of the original
St. Louis department stores. Also a site for many fashion shows. The image on the right shows the first -- the
thing that opened the theater and that was "Humoresque" and was written by a St. Louis
playwright as well. Okay. Head to the next fly away here. For this one, we're going to fly north. No we are going to fly south. Most people know this as the smile soda factory
building at 9th and Allen. This is a Google maps image. I do not believe it is under construction
anymore. What cool about this and this is not one with
big history. But it was a beer garden there and then the
home of the Czechoslovakian society. And then it was the Smile Soda Factory. Now I believe there are offices. The history we will find in this one. Another one of those cool ones for me. So you see this Picture here. This is from 1896. This is footage from the 1896 cyclone, the
great cyclone that flew through south St. Louis, claiming over 330 lives. Still considered one of the deadliest and
costliest natural disasters to hid an American city and is a big piece of south St. Louis
history. It makes its way through the neighborhood
and does, you know, flattens neighborhoods and parks and causes a huge loss of life. Here is damage to the Bohemian gymnasium. In you were looking at the building up close
now, you see underneath the second level windows you see the curve of those bricks and can
see the exact shape of that repair. Things like this, while it seems minor to
me, was moving when I found it because it connected me to St. Louisians living 130 years
ago. And it was just there it was right there with
some evidence of the damage and repairs. Move on to our next one. We will fly from here. Now we are really going to go way north. This is not a building that we are headed
to. This is a very unassuming little spot. So we are going to the Fountain cemetery. One of the great places to get lost and find
history and you can go and see the graves of famous St. Louisians. It is fun to get lost there and it you will
find stuff that you never expected such as this. A year ago I was wandering around with a friend
in Bellefountaine and we were reading off names having a fun time looking at older names
and I caught sight of an odd looking monument in the distance. On one side, hard to read in the middle there
you see in memory of one Joseph White. It was at the Presbyterian Church. It was removed from the old burial ground
on Franklin Avenue and Washington Street and beneath it are deposited the human remains
found there in November 1865 when they were removed according to an act of the legislature. What? So that is what I said when I found this. I had to research and find more about this. So in 1865, the city cleared out the city
cemeteries downtown, moved them further west. In 1865, you are not far after some of the
big cholera epidemics so most of the people buried in the cemeteries were cholera victims. When I researched this, the only article or
any piece of information that I could find was in the "New York Times" they covered the
fact that the men that were hired to move these bodies from this particular cemetery
out to Bellefountaine they were allowed to keep whatever they found on the bodies as
payment for what they were doing. So if most of these people died during cholera
they would have been buried in their clothing with whatever possessions they had on their
body because no one wanted to touch them in case they were contaminated. This was not a time when you had all of your
money in the bank or a card or things like that. You would have everything sewn to your clothe
or on your body. The men that moved the bodies found French
coins. They found gold. Watches. All kinds of things on the body and they were
allowed to keep them as payment. One of the most interesting graves they found
was a large metal casket with a glass top with a not as I said not too -- there was
a woman inside who was in good condition as the paper said. And she was covered in an extravagant gold
outfit. It turns out she was an actress that was killed
on Stage when a beam fell on her. And they said they had $5,000 of stuff on
this woman and it turns out that was costume jewelry. That was the last of the places one of my
favorite secret finds out in Bellefountaine. Here is the teaser and then we will open up
for the Q&A and then after the Q&A we have a poll for you to complete. Your feedback is very important to us. Here is -- this is the Pierce building downtown
at chestnut street. Looking at the building at turn the century
behind you would be the old courthouse and to the right you couldn't see anything because
you would be looking at a wall of buildings headed down to the river. Because what you are looking at is now the
Hyatt. So that is the original building. But it is clad in a more modern material. This was done in the late 20th century and
the two wings that are on the back were added to have the mechanical and electricalnd engineering
and plumbing and all of that. A historical building that has been covered
up and is in hiding in downtown St. Louis. That is my presentation on hidden in plain
sight. This presentation have taken days to do there
is so many. It was fun to find things that I challenged
myself to find things that were not found in hi other books about things that are hidden
in St. Louis. So again, I'm going to head to the Q&A to
see what interesting stuff to share. I see that someone was excited about that
I found the southwest Turner hall. Three exclamation points. That is how I felt as well. Doug, a great question about the glass-topped
coffin. It is not known that she was afraid of being
buried alive but that since she was buried in her stage clothing, a feeling that was
something that was part of that to see her beauty. Okay. Someone has a question about whether Bellefountaine
and calvary cemeteries are still open to drive through and they are. When your job comes out hanging out with interesting
dead people that comes in handy when you can't hang out with live people right now. You with walk and drive through both of those
during the day now. And do I know the name of the actress? I do not know her name off the top of my head
but I can look it up for sure. I have it in my research and I can respond
to the question and send you an e-mail. And I have another question about the actress
and what she was performing in which theater and those are all things in my notes but the
presentation was a little too short for that. I will e-mail anyone who is asking about her
and get that information. I have one of how do you research these buildings
and how can I research different buildings? Several different ways. When I see an address mentioned in an older
text. A newspaper article or in a book or -- I do
a lot of city directory reading and a lot of newspaper city guides. I have tours of St. Louis from the 1870's
and things like that. And I will see little references to things
and research the address and those are all things that I can do at the Missouri Historical
Society library. Not just when it's open but I -- you can research
a lot of this online now through the online collections. The St. Louis Public Library also has a phenomenal
online collection that you can look for a lot of these buildings as well as the Mercantile
library and newspapers.com. Someone asked about the plaque. The plaque is from 1953. And they are kind of patting themselves on
the back for completing this project. But that started in the early 20th century
to 1920 is when the bond issue was passed that pays for the major amount of these upgrades. Okay. I'm not seeing any new questions. Lots of good ones, if I wasn't able to answer
it I may be able to look up the answers for you. If you have questions afterwards you can reach
out to me @ Aclark @ mohistory.org. There should be a poll that you will receive
after the presentation. And again, your feedback is really, really
important and useful. And there is the poll. Hi, Lindsay. >> Thank you so much, Amanda for sharing the
history with us today. I did just launch a poll. Thank you all for being here with us for STL
history live. Again, we are so excited to be doing the series. And they are happening a few times each week. We would love for you to join us next time. The next is Thursday evening at 6:00 p.m. We are doing Hollywood versus history. The great, great grand daughter of Madam C.J.
walker and Linda Nance founding president of the historical society will discuss self-made,
the recent Netflix series I'm sure many of you had the opportunity to watch in the last
few weeks. It explores the life of Madam CJ walker and
the power of African American women as entrepreneurs and business leaders. That is Thursday evening at 6:00 p.m. And as Amanda was saying, we have polls and
also your feedback is just so important to us. So we have set up a survey today. The survey will automatically come up on your
screen when we end the session. So if you would just wait for a five second
countdown, you will see it come up in a new tab. You will have to navigate to the tab and it
will take just a couple of couple of moments to answer questions for us. Thank you for joining us and we look forward
to seeing you next time.
