Forward, Into The Past
Here’s the tale of three interlinked German-American newspapermen. They’re featured at the statue of The Naked Truth at Grand and Russell, and all three lived in Lafayette Square.
Continue reading “1857-1898: The German Newspapermen”
For starters, you won’t find the house and I can’t find a photo. How then to write about the Pulsifers? Probing a more obscure part of Lafayette Square history, it’s instructive in what it touches. Let me draw you a word picture.
Stephen D. Barlow was a pioneer; the first to develop land directly opposite Lafayette Park to the east. He was born in Vermont in 1816 and first came to St. Louis in 1839.
A colossal (technically speaking, twice life-size) bronze statue of Thomas Hart Benton resides in St. Louis’s Lafayette Park. It was cast by Ferdinand Miller in 1864 at the Royal Metal Foundry of Munich in Bavaria.
This grand giant, the first public monument placed in Missouri, was produced by a rightly famed sculptress, Harriet Hosmer. She is profiled in an earlier essay here.
The Lafayette Park Conservancy is a group dedicated to the preservation and improvement of the heart of Lafayette Square. In 2007, it set about restoring its 22 foot tall monument to Thomas Hart Benton. 2008 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of its creator, Harriet Hosmer, and the 140th year of the statue in the park. Therefore, a program was devised to coincide those anniversaries with the unveiling of a thoroughly refreshed Benton in the park.
St. Louis was simultaneously blessed for growth and cursed for livability by its proximity to the rich bituminous coal deposits of Southern Illinois. It made for cheap power, which allowed energy intensive industries like brick works and steel makers to thrive here. Most residents followed suit (or is it soot?) and burned coal to heat their homes. The smoke from soft coal hung heavy in the air of St. Louis every winter, dimming the daylight and causing respiratory issues. City efforts at smoke abatement through legislation reached back to the late 1860s, but the power of the coal business and low cost for home use kept it a perceived necessary evil.
Continue reading “1934: John A Bryan on Clearing The Air”Joseph Schnaider’s late 1880’s were a time of trusts – well capitalized businesses that created monopolies in certain industries. Railroads, steel, oil, tobacco and even beer faced stiff competition, buyouts, and consolidation. Coupled with rapid technological advances in the beer world, a business advantage was created for those who knew how to play it. One of the first breakthroughs was mechanical refrigeration, eliminating the need for caves. Refrigeration enabled year-round production, and when extended to railway boxcars, led ambitious brewers to develop regional and national distribution. Mass production reduced costs all down the line. Large breweries like Lemp and Anheuser-Busch took early advantage, establishing filling depots and rail centers across the country. Pasteurization and improved bottle closures extended shelf life and made global distribution possible.
Continue reading “1910: Schnaider’s Beer Empire – Part 3”St. Louisans love stories about baseball, beer and Germans. Here’s all three, in part 2 of the Schnaider saga.
Part 1 lafayettesquarearchives.com/1881-schnaiders-beer-empire-part-1/ featured Joseph Schnaider and the origins of Schnaider’s Garden in Lafayette Square. In 1887, residents of Benton Place raised the 30-foot limestone wall you see on the 2100 block of Hickory Street. It was a fortification, insulating the prosperous and reclusive above from the hustle and flow of Schnaider’s below. Note the cinderblock-filled doorway in the wall that servants from Benton Place homes used to access the shops along Hickory and Chouteau.
Continue reading “1887: Schnaider’s Beer Empire Part 2”
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.
If John Albury Bryan was the father of the restoration of Lafayette Square, it might be fair to ask who the mother was. The answer is most likely Ruth Kamphoefner, and rightly so. However, there were movers before Ruth moved to the Square in 1972. Consider the fascinating lady that lived about 100 feet from Bryan on Benton Place. She died eight weeks before him, and the passing of these two must have resonated in the neighborhood. Let’s take a time trip back and look in on Henrietta “Retta” Strantz Reed.
Continue reading “1960: Retta Reed – ‘Mayor’ Of Benton Place”
