February 2022 - Lafayette Square Archives

1889: A Streetcar History of Lafayette Square

In the summer of 2016 a road crew working on Lafayette Avenue in front of Lafayette Park exposed a pair of iron streetcar rails. On request, they set them aside, and they lay near Lafayette and Missouri for several weeks. Unable to reach any consensus for display, the neighborhood may have lost track of them, but it set me to wondering…

At the time of the 1904 Worlds Fair, St. Louis had one of the most extensive surface transportation networks in the country. Small wonder that a trolley became a stage for the 1944 film Meet Me In St. Louis.

1977: Sadie Hawkins Day

Ever heard of Sadie Hawkins Day? This old-timey observance presents a fine opportunity for the gentler sex to giddy up and grab the guy who’s been a little…reluctant. There’s an old riddle about why bachelors make poor grammarians (When asked to conjugate, they decline.) Well, this whole Sadie Hawkins thing started back in 1937, with cartoonist Al Capp and his comic strip called Lil’ Abner.

A race would be run by all the eligible bachelors of Dogpatch. The slowest of this lot would be the first Sadie would catch. By rules of the game, he must consent to marrying her.

1893: Skating Away In Lafayette Park

Ice skating has been popular in Europe for as long as you’d care to record it. However, mass popularity in America developed late in the last half of the 19th Century. The first formal skating club in the U.S. formed in New York in 1863. An undisputed star of the day was early figure skater Jackson Haines.