St Louis House Archives - Lafayette Square Archives

1955: Bowling At The German House

The St. Louis House at 2345 Lafayette Avenue once boasted a dozen hard maple bowling lanes, and kept them busy for decades. As early as 1930, Obermeyer’s Alleys there made so much noise that German House manager A.G. Barrow decided not to renew their lease, and notified Obermeyer by turning off the lights during play. It was later resolved in the Circuit Court, and bowling resumed.

It was known in the 1950s as Mueller’s Lanes, and business was terrific amid the same postwar fellowship that caused fraternal organizations like the Eagles, Elks and Moose Lodges to thrive.

Bowling became so popular it was televised nationally, and its best practitioners were rewarded like pro baseball players today. In fact, St. Louisan Don Carter was the first athlete ever to sign a $1 million endorsement deal, from Ebonite bowling balls. And did Ebonite know how to promote! Curval grips, indeed…

Soon bowling became freaky styley, and everyone was doing it, from babes in beehives to Give ‘em Hell Harry, with his bowling shirt secured beneath coat, tie and vest. A group of Missouri boosters gifted the White House with two lanes in 1947. Eisenhower (from the opposite party and who famously preferred golf) later turned the space into a mimeograph room.

There’s still a bit of the old spirit around St. Louis today. On the Epiphany Of Our Lord parish web site, the tabs at the top read “Sacraments”, “Parish Life” and “Bowling Alley”. There are upstairs lanes in Maplewood at the Saratoga on Sutton, and downstairs lanes at the Magic Chef Mansion in Compton Heights and Moolah Temple on Lindell Boulevard.

With the rise of television followed by dual income families and finally, the internet and computer gaming, social groups began to fade away. Leagues folded and lanes were torn down for parking lots and condos.

In 2000, a popular book titled “Bowling Alone” was published to explain it all to us, and bowling became the emblem of our failure to connect. It reminded us that we are social animals, and have a tangible need for community. Unsure to what degree we’ve addressed that one, but plead guilty to keeping a neglected Ebonite ball on a shelf in my garage. I belonged to a Tuesday night league during the early 1980’s at Frontier Bowl in O’Fallon, Missouri. It was a hoot.

Incidentally, the Bowling Hall Of Fame and Museum that sat about where Ballpark Village is today, moved in 2009 to Arlington Texas.

It started here in a 50,000 square foot facility, but resides in a less ambitious 16,000 foot space near Globe Life Park, home of the Texas Rangers baseball team. It seems a little forlorn in the boonies between Dallas and Ft Worth, but the 50’s Budweiser team of Carter, Weber, Bluth, Patterson and Hennessey are there in life size cardboard to greet you. In the meantime, we can still claim proximity, at least, to the righteously underrated Horseshoe Pitcher’s Hall of Fame in Wentzville.

Thanks to research sources including:

Missouri Historical Society Andrew Wanko April 10 2017 66 Through St. Louis. https://mohistory.org/blog/66-through-st-louis-crestwood-bowl/

history.com; 2018 Post; This Day In History: April 25, 1947; https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/truman-inaugurates-white-house-bowling-alley

Bowling Alone: The Collapse And Revival Of American Community; Robert Putnam; Touchstone Books; 2001

1956: German House Hosts The St. Louis Symphony

Way back in 1902, Columbia and RCA Victor were locked in a struggle to gain recording dominance of opera music. This was the highest prestige market, and recorded works commanded a premium, as the artists were very expensive to sign, and reluctant to put their voices out there for the general masses.

Victor named its offerings Red Seal, and charged twice as much as for other recordings. The product was, perhaps predictably, seldom a best-seller, although Enrico Caruso is credited with history’s first million selling record, again, in 1902. Victor did establish, with Red Seal, a bar for production excellence that lasted for the next century.

1961: The German House Spiritualists

In this episode we resume piecing together the mystical story of a four story building at 2345 Lafayette Avenue. Here, we take a walk in faith along an assortment of entrepreneurial pathways to Heaven, when the instruments of salvation chose to land at the German House, then called the St. Louis House, and gathered up wool from the local flock.

1946: German House Welcomes The Teen Thirty Club

“At 10:30 o’clock on Saturday mornings, bedlam breaks out in the auditorium of St Louis House, 2345 Lafayette Avenue, Yells, screams, stamping of feet and whistles express the enthusiasm of more than a thousand teenagers for a radio program specially built for them.”

1939 To 1956: German House In The St. Louis House Years

In late August of 1939, Germany signed a mutual non-aggression pact with Russia. This pretty much ended any doubt about Hitler’s intentions toward Europe, or the counterbalancing effects of Communism to Fascism. On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland.

1928-1942: German House – The Earliest Years

One can’t help but notice the large four story building lying dormant at 2345 Lafayette Avenue. Its boarded up windows give rather a blank countenance to what is, in fact, a fascinating place with a long and somewhat unfortunate history. It was originally called Das Deutsche Haus, or the German House. When all things German fell from favor with the onset of World War II, it was renamed the St Louis House. Join me for a journey back to its beginning.