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
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 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:
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.
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.
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.
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”
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 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.
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
