Forward, Into The Past
Joseph Schnaider (1832-1881) was a man with beer in his DNA. Born in the Baden area of what is now Germany, young Joseph was already working as a brewers apprentice at the age of 15. He became foreman of a large brewery in Strasburg three years later. Attracted by the published charms of America, and seized by a travel bug, he toured France and then headed across the Atlantic. He somehow wound up in the friendly Germanic confines of St. Louis.
Frank Absher of the St. Louis Media History Foundation recently sent me a color postcard from the German House of September 1929. It served as an invitation to the dedication of the huge building that still sits at 2345 Lafayette Avenue. This was its very beginning. KMOX, on the air for four years by then, was on hand to live cast the event.
Continue reading “1929: Launching The German House”
1935 was well over 80 years ago. Lafayette Square had regressed from mansions to boarding and rooming houses, as the nation around it sank firmly into its fifth year of economic depression. FDR attempted to prime the pump with federal funds by creating both the Social Security Administration and National Recovery Administration (NRA) that year.
