Lafayette Park Archives - Lafayette Square Archives

1860: Lafayette Square on First

A college game moves west

A little known aspect of Lafayette Park history involves its role in expanding our national pastime. In the 1850’s, the mansion of Edward Bredell Sr. stood directly across from the park on Lafayette Avenue. Edward Sr. made his fortune in mining and dry goods wholesaling. He later established the Missouri Glass Company as an enterprise for his son to manage. Edward Jr. attended Brown University, where he likely was introduced to New York rules baseball. Games involving balls and bats in various forms have been described as early as the 1820s, but the New York game was well defined and quickly gained popularity in that area

A second young man, Merritt Griswold, was a baseball enthusiast from Brooklyn. He relocated to St. Louis in early 1859 and took a job at Bredell’s Missouri Glass Company. Soon realizing their shared interest in the new game, Merritt and Edward Jr. founded the Cyclone Base Ball Club that summer. They became local missionaries for the New York game around St. Louis, The two published rules, a field layout and player positions in a Daily Missouri Democrat in 1860 (see below). Within a year, eight other teams formed in the city.

The park becomes Lafayette Field

At that time Lafayette Park’s funding came entirely from private citizens through a Board of Improvement. Edward Bredell Sr. and family had settled as original residents, around 1850, on Lafayette Avenue across from the park. He had a seat on the board, and voted his approval for the Cyclone Club, which paid $600.00 for dedicated use of a portion of the park. It happened to be Colonel Grimsley’s old parade grounds, the first developed part of the park, flat and grassy by design.

For his part, Griswold worked with one local team, the Morning Star club which played a variant style of ball. He converted them to the New York version. Game on! The first competitive baseball game played west of the Mississippi under the new rules took place on July, 9th, 1860. It occurred on a field near the St. Louis Fairgrounds. No pitcher’s duel, the final score was Morning Stars 50, Cyclones 24.

Lafayette Park did host games, beginning with a match on March 6.1861. Baseball’s appeal spread fast, and by late that spring, it was hotter than pickleball. Various groups quickly took up the sport, eager to compete on the basepaths.

The original Cyclones enjoyed only a short stint on this home field, lasting no longer than 2 years. The Civil War called men away, and frayed the camaraderie of those who remained. The Union army commandeered Lafayette Park for use as an encampment.

War intervenes – games cancelled

Griswold moved east, joining the Union army. He returned to St. Louis as part of a federalized militia, and figured in the Union capture of Fort Jackson. For their part, the Bredells’ sympathies lay with the Confederacy.

Edward Bredell Jr. was captured at Vicksburg, but later paroled. He subsequently joined John Mosby’s Rangers in a series of skirmishes against the cavalry of Philip Sheridan. He was killed in action in Virginia, buried on the field of battle, and later reinterred on the grounds of his father’s house on Lafayette Avenue. (as St. Louis forbade burial of Confederate soldiers in city cemeteries). Today, his grave is with that of his family at Bellefontaine Cemetery.

Still at it today in their wooly uniforms

The game, however, survived very nicely, thrilling St. Louisans to this day. You can grab a bit of this storied heritage for yourselves in Lafayette Park, which plays host to the St. Louis Cyclones and Perfectos vintage base ball clubs. You’ll find a schedule and much more at https://cyclonebbc.wordpress.com/2017-schedule/ for the Cyclones and https://www.facebook.com/stlouisperfectos/ for the Perfectos. Play ball!

Cyclones and Perfectos – two home teams!

Resources

The always reliable Find a Grave website was a useful source of information on Edward Bredell Sr. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14011069/edward-bredell

A wonderful account of the long and eventful burial of Edward Bredell Jr appears in This Game Of Games, an incredible survey of 19th century baseball in St. Louis. Jeff Kittle is a great storyteller and researcher of the game. I recommend that you visit his site. https://www.thisgameofgames.com/home/category/william-faulkner/

Another site, Baseball’s Greatest Sacrifice, recounts the professional players who gave their lives to military service. Among the hundreds listed, the first is Edward Bredell Jr. https://www.baseballsgreatestsacrifice.com/table_of_all_players.html

Edward Bredell’s home was next to that of Charles Gibson, who I call “The Father Of Lafayette Park.” Bredell’s large and comfortable estate was razed and redeveloped by iron magnate William Simpson in 1892. A look at who’s who on Lafayette Avenue in the 1850s appears in my earlier essay; lafayettesquarearchives.com/1858-palmatary-maps-the-square/

Missouri Democrat field layout by Griswold and Bredell; 1860

1894: Keep Off The Grass

In the Gilded Age of the 1890s city parks often hewed to the same starchy formality as was expected of a polite society. Lafayette Park was a strolling park, with pedestrians expected to keep to the graveled pathways. Those who chose to stray onto lawns and flower beds could find themselves confined to the police substation (today’s park house) for an hour, to ponder their errant ways.

This stuffy policy informs a poem which appeared in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat 130 years ago, in February of 1894. Reprinted for your enjoyment here:

A Heinous Crime

He appeared to be a villain of the

Very deepest dye;

There was treachery in his features

There was trickery in his eye:

And as six big coppers bore him

Struggling through the crowd,

Of the capture of the scoundrel

Each man of them felt proud.

They beat him with their billies and

They dragged him through the mire;

They yanked him to the Courthouse

And up before the Squire,

Who fined him twenty dollars and

Sassed him full of sass,

And all because the man had

Failed to

1914: The Tough Old Birds Of Lafayette Park

The prevailing economy in 1914 caused many tight purse strings around Lafayette Square. For the winter holiday season, someone decided to take the frugal approach. He or she procured a Christmas goose from the apparent bounty of Lafayette Park.

1903: Photos From Lafayette Park

Today’s feature is a recently discovered photo collection – about 45 images of Lafayette Park. They date from sometime after the great tornado of 1896. The trees were slowly reestablishing themselves by 1903. Although the twister took out virtually every old growth tree, some of the smaller ones bent enough to survive the storm. The loss of canopy provided an unintended benefit for today’s observers, however. We get a more unobstructed view of the streets and homes surrounding the park. Close inspection has its rewards.

Mississippi Avenue and Park Avenue; 1903

1885: A Lafayette Park Ghost Story

Adapted from a story by the St Louis Post Dispatch of December 25, 1885

LAFAYETTE PARK GHOST.

IT STRIKES TERROR TO THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Seen by George Wilson and a Couple of Inquisitive Young Men – It Is Fully Identified as Supernatural – A Newspaper Investigator Solves the Mystery and Relieves the Pressing Fears

George Wilson is an ashman who lives on Jefferson Avenue near Russell Avenue. While passing through Lafayette Park last Saturday night he spied a ghost. The apparition nearly crazed him with terror for a time.

1888: Views Of Lafayette Park

The 1888 book Commercial And Architectural St. Louis was both city travelogue and advertisement for its many commercial enterprises. It contains some intriguing drawings of Lafayette Park from the late 1880s. Consider that these images pre-date the Great Cyclone of 1896. That cataclysm wrecked much of the neighborhood and everything in the park but the statues and Park House.

The following narrative is from the original text in the book.

Lafayette Park lies in the southwestern portion of the city, and is in the midst of the fine residence portion of the south side…It is under a board of special commissioners, and they, together with the park department, have made it one of the handsomest pieces of landscape architecture to be found in the United States, not excepting any.

During the summer, the city provides a band of music for both Tower Grove and Lafayette parks, and on the days set apart as music days these parks are thronged.

Lafayette Park is not a driving park, so no vehicle being admitted larger than a child’s perambulator, but of these on any fine day there are thousands.

While in the lake boats are plying by the hundreds. Among the statues in this park, those of Washington and Benton occupy a prominent place.

Of the rare and curious plants, creepers, mosses, etc., and of the beautiful foliage, grottos, shady nooks, and other attractive features, a volume could be written. One must see such a place to appreciate it.

Thanks to the source of both text and illustrations:

Commercial And Architectural St. Louis; George Washington O’rear; Jones & O’rear Publishing. 1888

For a great overview of the same space today, check out the Lafayette Park Conservancy’ s website at https://www.lafayettepark.org

2013: Vile Wild Violets

Wild Violets

Sometimes scary tales involve something one wouldn’t associate with a threat. Something pleasant to the eye, that wouldn’t hurt a fly. Little wild violets, for example.

We once had a home with a large yard in South County. Pat came in beaming one spring morning, delighted by the little blue flowers that had appeared in our lawn.

2020: A Walk In Lafayette Park

I recently took a look at an enlarged view of Lafayette Park, and came away pretty amazed at what the map recognized.

1859: Lafayette Park and Krausnick

Sometimes the research for a historical essay seems linear enough, but then pinballs off at unanticipated angles. I set about to simply find some background on Edward Krausnick, the little-remembered first superintendent of Lafayette Park. What followed is a reminder that real lives seldom follow a linear narrative.

1867: The Lafayette Park House

1874; Missouri Historical Society; photo by Robert Benecke

Crowd management in the park

This victorian home in miniature was built as a single story police station in 1867, around the same time as the fence surrounding Lafayette Park. It was a field office of sorts for the main Soulard Police Station. Police stationed here dealt with the large crowds routinely drawn to events like Thursday concerts. These were held at the bandstand, the ruins of which remain to the northwest of the Park House. In 1873, the Daily Globe reported: “It has been rare that a fine day has called out less than five thousand people to listen to the music.” Historian John Albury Bryan noted,“crowds on Sundays exceeded those of Thursdays.” He quoted the St. Louis Republican from May 23 1877. “Visitors to Lafayette Park on Sunday, between 1pm and 6:45 pm totaled 13,749.”