Short Essays (500-1000 Words) 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

1859: Charles Gibson And Waverly Place

A description of Waverly Place by an enthusiastic real estate broker, on behalf of Charles Gibson. It appeared in the Daily Missouri Republican of June 23, 1859:

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.

1884: Henry Vogel Cartoons The 314.

I reckon that many of you are aware of the Compton and Dry panoramic map of St. Louis from 1875. It provides minute detail of the entire city at that time, even rivaling what Google Maps provides. There’s been a good deal of conjecture about how Camile Dry and his team managed to accomplish this, but if done with observation balloons, it went completely unremarked upon by the press, which seems odd.

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

1979: The Pony Was The People

The LSRC neighborhood association turned ten years old in April of 1979. A resident wit and frequent contributor to the Marquis turned her attention to commemorating that anniversary. Linda Underwood lived for years on Whittemore Place. With her husband Gary, she was an early and frequent advocate for the neighborhood, involved in the day to day restoration of Lafayette Square. She did this with unfailing humor and the ability to take it all in stride.

Here’s a lightly edited and photo enhanced excerpt from her Marquis article, “You Think Lafayette Square Is Weird Today…Read On”

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

1988: The Hijacked Hibiscus

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported an interesting case, back in September 1988. This was straight from the mean streets of Lafayette Square. Bill Bryan of the P-D staff wrote a pair of brief articles, and this is a summary.

Jerry Patterson lived on the 2000 block of Lafayette Avenue. He phoned the police to report the apparent theft of a hibiscus tree from his back yard.

Officers responded to the call. They scoured the crime scene and determined that the plant in question may have been anemic. Dropping its dead leaves, it left a breadcrumb trail that might lead to the thief. They followed the shedded leaves to a residence in the 1700 block of Nicholson Place.

2023: Like A Ton Of Bricks (Part 3)

Next time you walk around Lafayette Square, have a look at some of the brickscape. You’ll see many St. Louis companies represented in its paving bricks.

Then consider the houses’ exterior walls – today’s facing brick is an aesthetic compromise designed to lend a historic look, rather than supportive strength. Our early buildings were brickfests by comparison. The cross-section pictured below (from 2020) was of a decrepit building corner at the foot of 18th at Chouteau. Brick is solid stuff, and its sheer volume in use is a testament to the affordability of something locally mass-produced.

Bricks on the go

Beyond St. Louis, when you touch an early 20th-century red brick building in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, or Dallas you may again be close to the clay once beneath St. Louis. Bricks produced here shipped by rail everywhere. The strength and distinctive terracotta hue of St Louis brick made it a ubiquitous material for prestigious civic construction.

The export of St. Louis brick is sometimes involuntary. St. Louis City in 2017 had nearly 25,000 vacant or abandoned properties.¹ As the city loses population and other cities grow and thrive, a black market craves high quality low-cost brick. This is often wrested from abandoned buildings in the city. Turn of the century housing falls victim to wholesale “brick rustling” in North St. Louis.

A nasty cottage industry

Setting fire to an isolated structure is one ploy to ease the task of brick thievery. When the fire department battles the blaze, cold water hits hot walls, popping brick mortar and making the whole structure prone to collapse. Later, a cable strung between windows and tied to a truck pulls down the wall. Soon, the bricks may be heading down the interstate to Texas or Louisiana.

The loss of back walls from abandoned homes is prevalent on the north side. Enough so that the remains of such a structure are known locally as a “doll house”.

Lafayette Square has lost its fair share of significant brick structures. From left to right below, the Sheble/Bixby house, Nicholson estate and Barlow Mansion come to mind. While enjoying the old-time craftsmanship and solidity of our remaining original homes, an appreciation of brick is certainly integral to it.

The small miracle of preservation

The historic homes of the Square form a backdrop that gets into one’s bloodstream. If it’s not romantic, why do the wedding parties line up each year for their pictures in the park? Today it’s difficult to see the years of sustained effort expended in bringing the grand houses, and Lafayette Square itself, back from the brink of ruin. The city nearly wrote off this neighborhood in the late 1940s. A St. Louis Plan Commisson plat map labeled the area “Slum D”. The commission slated much of the area for destruction. This to make way for proposed state highway 755, the North-South Distributor. As close as it got after a contentious quarter century was the creation of Truman Parkway.

The area is magical, and its survival hung in the balance for decades. If it seems like a preservation miracle, I encourage you to take a pilgrimage there any time of year. And enjoy your look at all that brickwork!

Credits

I recommend this article for a deeper look at the importance of brick to St. Louis, and a good discussion of brick theft. It also makes reference to an excellent documentary, Brick – By Chance And Fortune. The Story of Brick in St. Louis, filmed by St. Louis’s own Bill Streeter. You can stream this 2011 feature from Amazon.

1.) Riverfront Times – January, 2018

99 Percent Invisible podcast – a truly worthwhile source of the unexpected in design and architecture. exchange.prx.org

Part one of this three part essay is here: http://lafayettesquarearchives.com/1849-like-a-ton-of-bricks-part-1/

Part two is here: http://lafayettesquarearchives.com/1872-like-a-ton-of-bricks-part-2/

A small smorgasbord of St. Louis paving and firebricks appears at the top of this website, or click here: https://lafayettesquarearchives.com/the-bricks-of-lafayette-square/