A most intriguing building in Lafayette Square, in terms of history and unused potential, is the German House at the corner of Lafayette and Jefferson Avenues. Its history is one of social groups, trade unions, entertainers and local politics. I’ve written extensively about the building and its stories, running from 1929 through the early 2000s. What you may not know is that another behemoth holding similar history once lay directly across the street. The Union Club condominiums occupies the site today, and its roots extend even deeper than those of the German House.
A clubby tradition in St. Louis
Fraternal organizations in America have had a varying membership rate over time. Following the Civil War, groups of veterans, and those looking for a form of health or death benefit formed lodges under various names. A quick survey of 1893 reveals “high-toned” clubs of St. Louis, including The Marquette (Catholic), St. Louis (West End), Harmonie (Jewish), Mercantile (business), Fair Grounds (aka Jockey Club; Agricultural and Mechanical Fair leaders), University (college graduates), Noonday (a wealthy man’s lunch club), Elks (not BPOE, more a theatrical fraternity), Columbia (Jewish) and Liederkranz (German).
In the 1910s, participation swelled to include nearly 40% of the U.S. adult male population. A decade later, some 800 distinct orders boasted about 30 million members.
The Great Depression hit lodge membership hard, as there wasn’t the disposable income available for paying dues. The Social Security Act of 1935 replaced the health and death benefits that attracted earlier fraternal society participants. There was a surge again following World War II, and then tailed off with development of television and migration to the suburbs.
Birth of the Union Club
This essay begins back in the early heyday of fraternalism; 1891 to be exact. In April of that year, a meeting of Masons met to lay the cornerstone of Anchor Lodge Hall at the southwest corner of Park and Jefferson Avenues. There was a grand procession, headed by a brass band, a rousing speech by Grand Master George Walker.
In November of the same year, The newly formed Union Club filed a petition in court for a decree of incorporation. The objects of the club would be to create a facility for “bringing together gentlemen residing in or interested in property and business within the southern part of the city. It would host “educational, amusement and protective programs,” and provide a home for the “discussion of plans and enterprises for protection of rights and the prosperity of south city residents.” Toward that end, it would house a library, reading rooms, and suitable halls for meeting.
The articles of agreement stated that the club was “not to be used for either business or political purposes, or for pecuniary gain and profit.” The chief officer listed was C.C. Rainwater, who lived at 21 Benton Place. Treasurer H.H. Wernse was a director of the St. Louis Merchant’s Exchange, living at 1901 Lafayette Avenue, a house built for him in 1885. Twenty-nine members signed the petition, including Lafayette Square residents August Nasse (2323 Lafayette Avenue) Leo Rassieur (2335 Whittemore Place,) E.S. Rowse (2007 Lafayette Avenue,) Philip Medart (1728 Missouri Avenue), Fred Drosten (2011 Park Avenue,) James How (2150 Lafayette Avenue,)Joseph Spiegelhalter (2166 Lafayette Avenue,) Charles Rebstock (1124 St. Ange) and Given Campbell (Lafayette Avenue near Jefferson.)
Fat cats raise the dough
A month later, the newly formed Union Club held a meeting at Anchor Hall, and discussed a site for a new club house. It proposed a budget of $100,000 and a desire to build in the Lafayette Park vicinity. The Union Club hoped to draw prominent members from the existing Germania Club, popular during that time in the south city area.
In January of 1892, the Union Club held an open house at the southeast corner of Jefferson and Park Avenue*. They spent $5,000 in renovating the building, which had been a private residence. The first floor held sitting, smoking and dining rooms for members and friends. The second floor had card and reading rooms. The third floor was a large billiard and pool room.
A Union Club Improvement Company formed in July of 1892, and secured a 160 x 145 foot parcel at Jefferson and Lafayette Avenues. Over 185 men subscribed to $75,000 worth of stock, and used no loans or credit to develop the site. Stakeholders included last names like Busch, Lemp, Christopher, Pitzman, Rainwater, Scullin and Edenborn.
The company leased the proposed building to the club for twenty-five years for the costs of maintenance, taxes, insurance and $3,000 per year.
Ringing in the new year/lodge
Almost two years later, on January 30, 1893, the Union Club, “the swell social organization of the South End,” formally opened for members inspection on the southeast corner of Jefferson and Lafayette Avenues. By this time the club numbered 125 prominent southsiders. The members, in evening dress, inspected the parlors, reception room, card and billiard rooms, dance hall, banquet rooms, and bowling alleys.
The building’s architect, Theodore Link was present that evening. He later added to this corner in 1905, by designing the Barr Branch library just across Jefferson Avenue.
The following evening was New Year’s Eve. Over a thousand party goers answered their invitations to the inaugural reception and ball. Carriages began depositing guests around 8pm, until the last joined the soiree around midnight. As they arrived, they were met at the door by members of the reception committee who took their cards and escorted them to various sub-reception rooms. Other members guided friends to friends, and relayed information. Floral decorations were extensive, and especially cheery in mid-winter. Pillars, from floor to ceiling, and the chandeliers were entwined with smilax vine and roses. So densely arrayed were the lilies, cut flowers, palms and other tropical plants that they obstructed the view of Professor Sanger’s orchestra.
Around 10pm, those musicians struck up the ‘familiar supper march.’ Hundreds of couples marched to beautifully set tables in the dining hall. Numerous ‘bountiful and varied’ courses followed. As supper concluded, the younger folks headed for the ballroom, and danced until early morning.
A long set of credits appeared in the Globe-Democrat; featuring managers and committeemen from Lafayette Square – names longtime residents recognize as neighborhood founders. Rowse, Finkelnburg, Rassieur, Rainwater, Pitzman, Taussig, Keyes, Scullin, Campbell, Nagel, Hauck, Droston, Rombauer and Ludlow all featured.
The old home’s a wreck; the new one too
As if to cue “The Party’s Over,” May of 1896 brought a gargantuan tornado that tore through the Lafayette Square and Soulard areas. It destroyed Anchor Hall at Park and Jefferson Avenues, which first hosted the newly formed club in 1891.
Today, you’d be hard pressed to even imagine the same long three story hall occupying the space that it once did.
Not that the new Union Hall at Jefferson and Lafayette fared much better.
The cream of South St. Louis society rallied behind a quick rebuild, vowing to make it even better the second time around. A disagreement over ownership of the original construction blueprints caused the Union Club to choose the architectural firm of Weber and Groves for the second iteration. A mere ten months after the tempest, and with many of the club principals having sustained heavy damage to their own homes, the Union Club rose again. It opened for inspection in February, 1897. This time, it took on a Colonial architectural style.
The resilience of leisure capital
The new ‘all electrically lit’ Union Club contained a large amphitheater with seating for a thousand guests on the first floor. Special work went into the stage’s drop curtain, presenting a scene called “The Heart Of The Rockies.” It went along with a reception hall, lobby, dining rooms, parlors and bowling alleys. The second floor held reading, smoking, card and billiard rooms, in addition to a large bar. This bar offered “everything from Mississippi River water to Veuve Cliquot.” The third floor contained a gymnasium “with the latest muscle-developing appliances.” The interior floors were all polished hardwood and the walls were terra cotta of three shades, with gold and silver trim.
Parlors segregated by sex, and the empire style ladies parlor featured numerous brocade upholstered divans, settees and chairs, in addition to a grand piano. Women met after the grand opening for their bowling club meetings three nights a week.
Again, an opening reception took place there, with over 1,200 attendees and the requisite dining, dancing and copious refreshments.
In July 1897, the Union Club added a roof garden to the west wing. It faced Jefferson Avenue, with the idea of making it “the airiest and coolest place in the city.” It was 85 feet long and 35 feet wide, decorated with Japanese lanterns, and encircled by a railing. The club’s membership reached 341 that summer.
That December,“the event of the season” arrived. Here’s a taste, from the St. Louis Republic:
“It was the second annual ball of the organization that includes in its membership nearly all the better social element in the vicinity of old-fashionedly aristocratic Lafayette Park. The handsome club house was lighted brilliantly from basement to the cupola that juts out over Jefferson Avenue like an ancient castle turret. Masses of evergreen plants transformed the entrance into a maze, through which polite attendants piloted guests to the hospitable interior.”
Laissez le bon temps rouler
The Union Club threw a Mardi Gras ball in February, 1898. The St. Louis Republic declared that the decorations, costumes and music were ‘par excellence,’ “the most brilliant function in the six eventful years of the Union Club.” There were over 300 incandescent lamps in the ballroom, each covered by a brightly colored Japanese lantern. From the center of the ceiling hung a giant inverted parasol, from which dangled hundreds of tiny colored electric lights. Flags, ribbons and draperies hung everywhere, contrasting with giant palms and evergreens. Adding all the colorful costumes whirling out on the dance floor gave the impression of the entire scene moving like a giant kaleidoscope. Of course, Old Glory was on display, along with Cuban flags and attendees dressed in Cuban and Spanish garb. It was a time of proud post-war empire in America.
The Globe-Democrat marveled at the costumes:
“Here his majesty, the Devil marches with Mary Queen of Scots. There a Filipino whirled away, clasping the Red Cross nurse in the maze of the waltz. Over yonder were eight pretty red gowned poppies, pairing off with convicts in their striped suits. The Brownies were there, the Chinamen hob-nobbing with the Rough Riders.”
A customary dinner march that night took place at 11:30pm. Guests removed their masks, and a small army of 50 waiters began serving the 800 revelers . Afterward, the dancing resumed, “a Mardi Gras ball where wives and mothers were as much at home as sweethearts, and the aged parents of the dances applauded and enjoyed the jolly capers of the young.”
A long record of exchange begins
The original Union Club Company sold the Union Club to the Fraternal Order of Eagles in 1914. They held it for the next 20 years.
When we see photographs of people from the Gilded Age, they generally appear stern and colorless. Real life was not like that, especially among the privileged class. Consider that directors of the Union Club, who at this time included C.F. Blanke, Judge Leo Rassieur, and Joseph Griesedieck, had a fun-loving side to them. It was an age of prosperity and possibility.
The jolt of modern times
Moving from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age, the nation hit the Roaring Twenties. This was an exuberant time of emergent technologies and wealth creation. It also saw the adoption of the Volstead Act, or Prohibition. Legally dry times invited misbehavior and fostered the organized crime that worked tirelessly to provide what the government would not allow.
A fairly ‘typical of the time’ story ended for 23 year old Vincent Barbera just outside Jeffla (a contraction of Jefferson and Lafayette) Hall. Jeffla Hall was a new name recently given to the home of the Union Club. Barbera attended the wedding of a family friend there. After the ceremony, he put his parents into a taxicab. A passing Lincoln sprayed Barbera’s whereabouts as he entered his own vehicle. The coroners counted seventeen bullet wounds.
As young as he was, St. Louis police arrested Barbera 57 times, including an indictment for the murder of Alphonse Palazzolo, but only suffered one conviction; paying a $100 fine for possession of a concealed gun. He claimed legitimacy within the fruit and vegetable trade of St. Louis, but police described him simply as a “gangster.” Prime suspects in the shooting belonged to a gang of Sicilian extortionists known as the “Green Ones,” of which Palazzolo was a member.
Two of Palazzolo’s cronies, Tony Di Trapani and Dominick Cataldi were killed by submachine gunfire nine months earlier. The racketeers war raged over control of the cleaning and dyeing business in the city. Several dye shops had been bombed over the course of the past year. Barbera’s gang promised freedom from bombing, union labor and competition in return for 10% of the gross receipts and $2,000 annual ‘dues’ from the businesses. With John Giannola, a brother of the Green Ones leader who was similarly killed the previous December, Barbera was under indictment for conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act. His killing brought the total during this gang war to a total of seventeen. More ‘die’ than ‘dye’ business by the look of it.
Service was likely very good at Jeffla Hall
As pointed out earlier, the 1930s were a tough time for fraternal organizations. The opening of the German House across the street siphoned off a number of events and functions that Jeffla Hall once dominated. In 1934, the Eagles defaulted on a second mortgage, and Jeffla Hall slipped into foreclosure. Bondholders of the Eagles Home Protective Association purchased the facility for $30,000.
Three years later, the Unit Investment Company sold Jeffla Hall to the Waitresses Union Local 249 and Hotel Workers Union Local 430. Both groups moved their offices from the German House across the street to Jeffla hall. The sale netted about $40,000 for the investment group. At that time, Jeffla Hall had two dozen offices and eight halls. Sixty-three social, labor and fraternal organizations met and/or headquartered there.
The German House was seeing troubles of its own. Groups removed themselves over growing opposition to the threat of Naziism. Two years after the waitresses and hotel workers walked away, the German House renamed itself the St. Louis House, and life went on for both buildings, splitting the market for the same basic services.
A year after World War II ended, Jeffla Hall once again changed hands, this time to Marchand and Sarkis, owners of bar rooms throughout the city. After 35 years, Jeffla Hall was now going to be bar-centric. At least it was again an appreciating asset, going for $45,000. The buyers spent another estimated $35,000 to remodel the building. An eighty foot bar held the place of honor in the tab room on the Jefferson side of the building. A chicken and steak restaurant opened in the arcade section. Twenty-three organizations continued to rent spaces for meetings and conducting business.
Here is a good look at Jeffla Hall in February, 1946:
Post-war life in a changing clubhouse
Life went on in Lafayette Square and at Jefferson and Lafayette Avenues. In 1949, a strike involving 20,000 members of four St. Louis unions came together in a meeting held at the recently renamed United Halls. The old structure had come a long way, from business owners and municipal moguls to the rank and file of organized labor
Showing the same usage diversity as its St Louis House neighbor across the street, here’s a look at United Hall’s yearly celebration of Mexican independence; this one held during September, 1951
Renaming Jeffla Hall to United Halls changed no trajectory besides one of price. In its fourth sale since 1934, the facility again changed hands in 1952. Joseph Vollmer bought the place from Marchand and Sarkis for $65,000. This was more than twice what it sold for in 1934.
Right up until 1954, the building stayed occupied and busy, even though the neighborhood it served had long lost most of its civic boosters and financial supporters. From the end of the war through this time, the hall held barn dances in its large ballroom.
A club known as The Hucklebuck opened in the basement of United Halls.
And pentecostal church musical revivals were common, held weekly. like this from March, 1954:
A familiar solution for financial liabilities
Perhaps United Halls encountered the law of diminishing returns. An insurance fire is one in which a business’s bills rub up against each other, with the friction sparking a blaze. It was never conclusively determined what caused the initial blaze at United Halls in October of 1954, but the damage was extensive. It appeared to have started down in the Hucklebuck. Flames quickly reached the portico and were drafted up to the third floor. Damage estimates reached $150,000.
The center of the building with its distinctive cupola collapsed, and smoke could be seen from miles away. This five-alarm blaze injured thirteen firefighters, jammed traffic and stopped bus and streetcar service. At the time, United Halls held an insurance agency, a self-serve laundry, a realty firm, the Hucklebuck and Rosita Chili House, in addition to its meeting and musical functions.
The unoccupied ruins moldered for a while. The Post-Dispatch reported on May 12, 1955 that United Halls would soon be razed by its owner, Joseph Vollmer of Webster Groves. Three days later, another fire swept the empty building. This one started in a part of the building undamaged by the earlier inferno. This once more started in the basement at the rear and damaged the upper floors. The Vollmers vowed to rebuild the structure, and add a bowling facility to it.
None of that happened.
The Phoenix of Lafayette Avenue
What did happen was demolition. The “pallbearer of old buildings,” Dr. William Swekosky was on hand to document the event.
This would have been the end of it, but for Chris Goodson and Trace Shaughnessy of Gilded Age, serial developers within a rehabilitating Lafayette Square. They were well aware of the history of the site, and decided to do it some justice. With the Lawrence Group architects, they filled the footprint of Union/Jeffla/United Hall with a new building. This one pays tribute to aspects of the original design, while occupying the space in a forward-looking manner. It houses 39 condos and opened in 2007.
Lafayette Square is a quiet neighborhood today; family friendly and filled with restored period architecture and mature landscaping. It’s appropriate that the new Union Club is a residential building with retail space below. It’s also a long way from a more turbulent history at the address, while carrying the faint echoes of it. That’s how the whole historic district rolls.
Resources
A brief overview of fraternal lodge development is at Wikipedia, as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Fraternalism
The engraving of Anchor Hall is from the St. Louis Republic of April 12, 1891. The slightly blurred image was sharpened with Google Gemini. The original Republic image is available on request.
C.C. Rainwater has appeared in an earlier essay. An interesting and influential character. https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/1894-the-rainwater-rifles/
- 1410 South Jefferson at Park Avenue was razed in 1911 and replaced the next year by a two story commercial (now apartment residential) structure. Note the winged hourglasses in the upper corners of the structure. They were from the building’s days as an insurance company. Tempus fugit; buy some insurance.
This site contains much more background on the German/St. Louis House. The first of five essays is here: https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/1929-launching-the-german-house/. Consult the website table of contents for the others in the series.
Newspaper sources
Meeting to discuss creating a new Union Club building from St. Louis Republic of December 4, 1891.
Opening of Union Club at Park and Jefferson; Globe-Democrat; January 1, 1892; January 20, 1892.
The full membership list of the original club meeting at Anchor Hall in November 1891 is from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat; November 4, 1891.
Photo of Theodore Link from Missouri Encyclopedia; Missouri State Historical Society.
Opening of newly built Union Club at Lafayette and Jefferson; Globe-Democrat; December 30, 1893.
Grand opening ball information from Post-Dispatch, and Globe-Democrat of January 13, 1894.
Grand reopening, post-tornado, from Post-Dispatch and Globe-Democrat of February 19, 1897.
Addition of rooftop garden to Union Club from St. Louis Republic; July 4, 1897
Second annual ball description from Republic of December 3, 1897.
Mardi Gras at the Union Club from the Republic of February 23, 1898.
Description of dancers at a Union Club masque ball from the Globe-Democrat of February 3, 1899.
Account of Vincent Barbera shooting extracted from Globe-Democrat, Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Star of June 25, 1928.
Jeffla Hall Changes Hands; Globe-Democrat; February 10, 1946.
1952 sale of United Halls from the South St. Louis Neighborhood News of October 9, 1952
Coverage of the 1954 fire at United Halls from the Post-Dispatch of October 5 and 6, 1954, and the Globe-Democrat of October 6,1954
Word of the proposed razing of United Halls from the Post-Dispatch; May 12 1955.
The second fire, seven months later, was covered by the Post-Dispatch of May 15, and Globe-Democrat of May 16, 1955.
