We live in a neighborhood steeped in its own history. The times change fast, but it’s comforting to consider the constants around us, and Lafayette Park holds a big bouquet of them.
Continue reading “2020: Lafayette Park Ferns – Of Fiddleheads and Rabbit Holes”Category: Short Essays (500-1000 Words)
1885: The Dark And Mysterious Places of St Louis
Among so many, there is a certain wonderful booklet from 1885 in the Mercantile Library, called “The Dark And Mysterious Places Of St Louis.” It’s an armchair investigator’s delight, in terms of being somewhere without having to go somewhere. This ‘where’ is St Louis society’s urban underbelly, full of, as the book cover promises, “Gilded Sin and Naked Vice!”
Continue reading “1885: The Dark And Mysterious Places of St Louis”1896: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Comes To St Louis
From May 18 through May 24, 1896, the most famous show of its type, the original and biggest spectacle of its age, stopped in St Louis, setting up at the corner of Compton and Manchester. The show was so large that it required 15 acres of empty ground to stage.
Continue reading “1896: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Comes To St Louis”