History Museum’s Powerful “Civil War in Missouri”

If the Civil War had a dramatic impact on the economy and population of St. Louis its impact on rural Missouri – particularly west and south of St. Louis – was catastrophic. The first major Civil War battle fought west of the Mississippi River (Wilson’s Creek in 1861) and later the largest (Westport in 1864)  were fought in Missouri. The southern and western borders of the state were ravaged by guerrilla warfare.

Accounts and images relating to Missouri’s pivotal role in the War Between the States are powerfully framed in one of the Missouri History Museum’s finest exhibits in recent memory. The Civil War in Missouri should resonate not only with Missourians statewide but with all Americans commemorating 2011 – 2015 the deadliest man-made disaster in the nation’s history.

For what happened in Missouri did not stay in Missouri but bled out of our borders westward into Kansas and Texas, and eastward into Georgia and Mississippi. Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman were both civilians when they witnessed insurrection in the streets of St. Louis in the spring of 1861. Steeled by the incalculable human losses which they later observed in battle, they were determined to end the war as expediently and as finally as possible.

Had the Federal Arsenal at St. Louis fallen to secessionists, as had the Federal Arsenal at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Grant believed the Union would not have won the war for enormous. Enormous amounts of ammunition were at stake that in the final weeks and hours of the Civil War proved critical.

Captain Nathaniel Lyon’s decisive if peremptory actions in surrounding the Missouri Militia at Camp Jackson in 1861 prevented the arsenal’s capture but resulted in a street riot that inflamed rural Missourians to enlist for the Confederacy in such great numbers that the negatives nearly outweighed the benefits.

James Buchanan Eads’ design and construction of ironclads at Carondelet enabled Union forces to break the Confederacy’s blockade of the Mississippi south of Memphis and get much needed ammunition and medical supplies to federal troops, quite literally turning the tide of war on the western front.

Thereby allowing Union forces under the command of Major General Ulysses S. Grant to take Vicksburg, Mississippi and divide the Confederacy in half.

These stories and many others are depicted in the History Museum’s The Civil War in Missouri.

Whether you know the stories well or they are new to you, the opportunity to view such artifacts as the Coroner’s Record Book with the pages containing names and ages of St. Louisans killed in street riots, medical instruments used to treat the wounded of both sides on hospital boats and in city hospitals, handmade quilts created to raise income to aid refugees at the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair here in St. Louis or rural Missouri and photographs of men, women and children, black and white, who were drawn into the Civil War in Missouri, is priceless.

The Civil War in Missouri Exhibit offers a powerful, vicarious experience of an event so devastating in our communal history that it cannot be over-emphasized. Indeed it has been suggested that had the Union not held in the wake of civil war, Independence Day would not survive as a national holiday.

I highly recommend this exhibit to school groups from the fourth grade up. Since the exhibit runs through March 16, 2013 at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis teachers have ample time to plan class outings.

I also believe that younger children should have the opportunity to explore The Civil War in Missouri with their families, with parents and grandparents.  Adults with children might wander the exhibit in a leisurely way stopping to explain or discuss (using the information provided) whatever painting, illustration or artifact captures the attention of their child.

It doesn’t matter how many of the exhibit pieces the children choose. Subliminally they will absorb quite a lot, and they will focus upon what particularly interests them and what they can handle.

Parents may want to plan their own time to view The Civil War in Missouri at length for it is many-faceted and excellently done.

Interactive displays allow visitors to visualize geographic landscapes, the topography of Missouri  – its creeks, rivers and countryside transformed into battlefields – as well as the unfolding of Union and Confederate strategies.

Numerous artifacts and works of art personalize the experiences of soldiers, slaves and freed slaves, and illustrate the plight of refugees – some innocent victims whose homes and farms were destroyed, some newly arrived immigrants to St. Louis.

The Missouri Historical Society ( housed in the Jefferson Memorial in Forest Park since shortly after the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904) was established in St. Louis in 1866  “for the purpose of saving from oblivion the early history of the city and state”.*

Fortunately its founding members, having barely survived the Civil War and seen enormous changes in St. Louis and Missouri even within the prior three decades, realized the need for such an initiative.

If you are traveling to St. Louis to visit The Civil War in Missouri Exhibit you will find it in the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park, where a huge sculpture of President Thomas Jefferson by Karl Bitter dominates the north entrance. Constructed with proceeds from the world’s fair that commemorated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase, it was the first national monument erected to Thomas Jefferson in the United States.

Handsomely designed in 1911 by Isaac Taylor,  supervising architect of the 1904 World’s Fair, the Jefferson Memorial makes up the northern section of the Missouri History Museum, a treasure trove that includes splendid remnants of that fair and a model of Charles Lindbergh’s The Spirit of St. Louis, which local businessmen financed.

* Excerpt from the Mission Statement of the Missouri Historical Society

Illustrations: Battle of Westport Mural in the Missouri State Capitol Building and Destruction of Lawrence Kansas by William Quantrell – pen & ink illustration from Harper’s Weekly Magazine, September 5, 1863 – both in the public domain at wikipedia.org.; Admiral Porter’s Fleet Running the Blockade of the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, April 16, 1863.

All photos taken within The Civil War in Missouri Exhibition and the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park were taken with my cell phone, without a flash, strictly for educational and non-commercial purposes.

Christmas in St. Louis 1861

2011 has been a difficult year for thousands of St. Louisans, as it has been for millions of Americans outside of St. Louis who have seen the companies they worked for close or cut back dramatically on staff. The hopes of many who saw their jobs disappear in 2010 dimmed as the New Year brought no full-time employment opportunities and not enough part-time work to compensate. The number of children living in poverty swelled throughout the U.S. as here, and local food pantries struggle to fulfill the needs of their families. But if anything, the December of 1861 was even worse. And it’s sometimes well to recall the past in order to endure the present.

Violent skirmishes in the streets of St. Louis in May and June of 1861 resulted in numerous deaths.  Martial Law was declared in August, lasting until the end of the Civil War. Citizens were forced to take an oath of loyalty to the United States and residents had to obtain a pass from the Provost Marshall to enter and leave the city.* The Confederacy’s blockade of the Mississippi River south of Memphis brought river traffic to a standstill putting tremendous strain on the people and the commerce of St. Louis, the nation’s second busiest port.

Over 2,000 of the 4,000,000 Americans held in slavery lived in the St. Louis area. Slavery had become unpopular in St. Louis but the city remained the largest market for slave trade in Missouri; the seeds sown so deeply that they encompassed four generations of some black families – families torn and dessicated by trade.

The first Confederate prisoners of war began arriving at the 7th Street Train Depot on Christmas Eve and were marched to the Gratiot Street Prison (formerly McDowell’s Medical College).

Over four years of war it grew horribly overcrowded, becoming the largest Union prison in Missouri for Confederate soldiers and spies, many of whom died of exposure to extreme heat or cold, and of disease.

Christmas 1861 found the fathers and sons of many St. Louis families away at war; some families split right down the middle for the Union or the Confederacy. Mothers, wives, sisters could be arrested, imprisoned or deported for aiding – sending food, bandages and letters – to Confederate family members.

But St. Louisans did what they could to keep Christmas in the festive way revived by Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in 1843. “Jingle Bells”, “O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Deck the Halls” were popularly sung.

Homes like the Campbells’ in Lucas Place, where no one went to war, were festooned with bright ribbon and greenery.

With Missouri ranking third in the number of Civil War battles fought within its borders and forty-five percent of those fought in the first year of the war, St. Louis was inundated with refugees – former slaves and rural inhabitants whose homes

and farms had been destroyed. Aid societies were formed to feed and clothe the destitute and St. Louisans were not only asked but required to contribute.* It was a desperate time and it would continue to be. If New Year’s celebrations were subdued on December 31, 1861 they nevertheless endured in hopes of a brighter future.

As 2011 draws to a close, may the specter of a Christmas one hundred and fifty years past, remind St. Louisans how much we have to celebrate, not the least of which, that we survived civil war. And that we remain in the 21st century one nation under God, more ethnically diverse than ever, and resolve to make whatever future we are given better.

* Christmas in St. Louis 1861 – December 4, 2011 Blog Post by Douglas Harding of the National Park Service – The Old Courthouse, St. Louis, MO.

Photo Credits: Confederate Soldiers at POW Camp Douglas (Chicago) – photographer possibly D.F. Brandon, in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Four Generations of a South Carolina Slave Family – photographed by Timothy H. O’Sullivan, circa 1862, in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Campbell House Parlor at Christmas and Christmas in Citygarden St. Louis – Maureen Kavanaugh, author of this blog.

Illustrations: First Commercially Produced Christmas Card – John Calcott Horsely, in the public domain at wikipedia.org; St. Louis Riot 1861 – Missouri Historical Society Exhibit in the Missouri State Capitol – in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Title Page, First Edition of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol illustrated by John Leech, 1843 – in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Battle of Wilson’s Creek Mural in the Missouri State Capitol – N.C. Wyeth, in the public domain at wikipedia.org; The Ghost of Christmas Past – John Leech 1843, for A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – in the public domain at wikipedia.org.

American City: St. Louis Architecture!

Although American City St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design was published in 2010 I haven’t had a copy of my own to peruse at my leisure until last week when my husband gave it to me for my birthday. (Thank you, Tom!) And if you think that the last thing someone who shows the majority of the places depicted in this marvelous book on a regular basis would want or need would be pictorial compilation of them you would be mistaken. For this is a honey of a book to hold and to savor.

Having flipped through its pages occasionally at the AIA Bookstore (911 Washington Avenue) in between downtown tours I have longed for my own copy since it was hot off the press and for the same reasons that anyone, who is interested in or loves St. Louis and does not yet possess a copy, would.

American City St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design is a handsome, 11.3″ square, pictorial celebration of St. Louis architecture and culture with insightful, erudite commentary by Robert Sharoff (architecture contributor to The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune and Chicago Magazine) and stunning photography by award-winning architectural photographer, William Zbaren (http://zbaren.com/) that frames and zooms in on some of the oft-unrecognized architectural wonders that make St. Louis one of the most beautiful cities in America.

Over the summer of 2007 Sharoff and Zbaren lived and worked in Post Office Square having for their first sight each morning Alfred B. Mullet’s fantastical U.S. Custom House and Post Office, one of three downtown landmarks that resonate the French origin of this city’s founder; all three of which (including City Hall pictured above and the head house of Union Station) feature prominently in the coffee table book they would produce.

Here in American City St. Louis  we see such architectural jewels as James Eads’ Bridge, Isaac Taylor’s Municipal Courts Building, Harvey Ellis’ Compton Heights Water Tower and Henry Ives Cobb’s Chemical Building through the lens of a master photographer with an eye for architectural detail that is breathtaking. Case in point: pages 44 – 47 which virtually recreate Cobb’s boldly sinuous, undulating lines.

In the early 2000s Sharoff and Zbaren conceived a splendid idea: to explore and capture architectural treasures in American cities far less celebrated than New York and Los Angeles, about which much has already been published. Considering themselves preservationists, Robert Sharoff and William Zbaren have also been described as urban archaeologists for their intent is to get to the roots, the origins of a city’s culture and focus a spotlight on the muscle and bones of that metropolis. The first city they published was Detroit, Michigan in 2005.

As it happens both Detroit and St. Louis (their second city) were founded by Frenchmen (Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac and Pierre Laclede Liguest respectively) with military backgrounds who were been born in or at the foot of the Pyrenees. Weaving just enough history and little-known facts into Zbaren’s pictorial pageantry, Sharoff informs the reader and piques our interest. However well you know St. Louis buildings and history you will find surprises in Robert Sharoff’s text.

The landmarks Sharoff and Zbaren chose, which they narrowed down from one hundred to fifty, and which to the disappointment of some include none of the area’s splendid churches are sometimes surprising (outside of mainstays included by earlier authors and photographers). Their perspectives are not only fresh but riveting as with the dynamic thrust of James Eads’ vision (page 11), Louis Sullivan’s lyricism (pages 34 and 35) and Gyo Obata’s versatility (pages 104-105, 116-117 and 124-125) to name but three.

Perhaps the most surprising image of all is the cover photo (repeated on pages 72 and 73) of not the Gateway Arch or Union Station which have been so identified with this city but Guy Study’s quintessentially St. Louis, Intake Tower #2. Robert Sharoff explains, “Intake Tower #2, which was built for the St. Louis water department and includes living quarters, embodies St. Louis architecture: a miniature Classical palace in the river.”*

Here in the mid-Mississippi River Valley French culture took root within a tiny international port that by the turn of the 20th century had grown into the fourth city in the nation – nourished, fed by the greatest river in North America. Anyone who has visited the site where this picturesque landmark overlooks the natural Chain of Rocks around which the Mississippi curls its watery fingers has been fascinated by Intake Tower #2. I’m so glad that Sharoff and Zbaren made their way this far north!

Robert Sharoff told me this morning that American City St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design is now in its second printing. This is wonderful news for St. Louis, great publicity! And for Robert Sharoff and William Zbaren at whose website (http://www.theamericancity.com/) you may view  splendid photographs of St. Louis and glimpse their other publications highlighting Detroit, Chicago and Savannah.

Time will tell but I believe that their dramatic, photographic indexing of great American architecture and celebration of the cities in which it stands is a winning concept. I cannot wait to get my hands on the entire series!

*American City St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design – text by Robert Sharoff, photographs by William Zbaren, the Image Publishing Group Pty Ltd, Victoria, Australia, 2010.

Photo & Illustration Credits: Cover Photo of American City St. Louis Architecture: Three Centuries of Classic Design, Intake Tower # 2 – William Zbaren, used with the kind permission of Robert Sharoff; Map of New France – Vincenzo Coronelli, 1688, in the public domain at wikipedia.org; David Stott Sits Among Detroit Towers – Mike Russell, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 30 Unported License Attribution: I, Mikerussell – at wikipedia.com. All other photos by Maureen Kavanaugh, author of this blog.

Calvary Cemetery – Treasure Trove of The Lou’s History

With the exception of Thomas Danisi’s home on Mackay Place and a portion of Manuel Lisa’s fur warehouse in the Old Courthouse downtown, the last vestiges of Colonial St. Louis are to be found in a Catholic cemetery, the city’s largest, in north St. Louis.

Covering 477 acres and containing some 330,000 burials, Calvary Cemetery – bordered by West Florissant Avenue on the south, Calvary Avenue on the east, Broadway and Switzer Road on the north and Riverview Boulevard on the west – is a treasure trove of St. Louis history.

Even before Archbishop Peter Kenrick of the Archdiocese of St. Louis purchased Senator Henry Clay’s 323-acre “Old Orchard Farm” in 1853,* the adjoining property
(acquired later) held the graves of soldiers who had served at Fort Belle Fontaine between 1805 and 1828 and an “Indian Burial Ground” of indeterminate age. Those individuals remain at Calvary still.

If that earthwork was akin to the burial mound atop which John O’Fallon built Athlone, his four-story, country mansion, a mile and a half away in what is today O’Fallon Park, it was likely Mississippian in origin.

John O’Fallon thought that he had chosen the highest hill northwest of St. Louis for his country house until the builders digging its foundation turned up cartloads of skeletal remains and pottery shards.

O’Fallon, one of the most successful merchants in St. Louis history, buried his uncle, explorer William Clark, on a lower sweep of his estate overlooking the Mississippi River. Before it became Bellefontaine Cemetery. Just across the road from Henry Clay’s farm. A narrow, two lane road is all that separates these deeply historic cemeteries today.

Archbishop Kenrick used the mansion that stood near the western end of the “Old Orchard Farm” and Riverview Boulevard as a summer retreat (later Carmelite nuns would use it as a home for orphans) and began to plan a cemetery on its eastern end because the Great Cholera Epidemic of 1849 had left existing Catholic cemeteries full.

According Jeanne Besselsen, Assistant Director of Calvary Cemetery, the first burials after Calvary was established in 1857 took place along Calvary Avenue overlooking Broadway, with a beautiful view of the Mississippi River. The Hunt Mausoleum was ideally situated for this, literally dug into the hillside and facing east. Fine, large cameos of Ann Lucas Hunt and both of her husbands – Theodore Hunt, whom she married first, and his cousin Wilson, whom she married after Theodore died – are engraved in stone above the entrance.

The Hunt Mausoleum’s placement has powerful emotional significance. You must leave the upper road and walk down into the sculpted grave site in order to see the mausoleum’s facade. Turned away as it is from the entire rest of the cemetery, the view would have been of river, prairie and sunrise, with no lingering images of death.

Along the high, eastern road to the oldest graves you will find Mullanphys – John, the city’s first philanthropist and his wife Elizabeth, both natives of Ireland – along with their son Bryan, early St. Louis mayor and founder of the world-wide Travellers Aid Fund.

The Clemens’ can be found nearby – James, first cousin to Mark Twain and the love of his life, Eliza Mullanphy Clemens, youngest daughter of John and Elizabeth.

You will also find Soulards – Antoine, who surveyed the Upper Louisiana Territory for the King of Spain and his wife, Julie Cerre Soulard, who deeded part of her land to the City of St. Louis for so long as it should be maintained as a public market. It bears their name and St. Louisans still shop there on Saturday mornings. Soulard Market is the oldest, continuously maintained public market in the U.S. as a result of Julia’s foresight.

According to Calvary Cemetery archives, the farm deeded to Ann Clay by her father, Henry consisted of “a gracious plantation house (two-story, brick constructed in 1845**), slave quarters and all of the amenities of the Southern garden.”***

“Old Orchard Farm” was used for grazing, sections of it never tilled. They have been identified as “the last known, native tall grass prairie in St. Louis.”****

And the Archdiocese of St. Louis has agreed to preserve it for one hundred years.

In 2007 several local organizations including the Nature Conservancy, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Missouri Botanical Garden, Trailnet and Forest Park Forever joined with the Archdiocesan Cemetery Association to restore and preserve an area of approximately 25 acres where over 130 species of flowering plants and grasses flourish as they have since long before St. Louis’ Colonial period.****

Jim Kirchherr of KETC-TV/ PBS in St. Louis interviewed Doug Ladd of the Nature Conservancy in 2008 as they walked a section of the Calvary Prairie and Ladd pointed out some of its now rare species – like “Big Blue Stem Grass” which “can grow higher than a man on a horse.” Ladd described how “seas of (such) grass once covered almost two-thirds of what is today the City of St. Louis.”*****

When I visited the area last week with my husband the grasses and wildflowers were a profusion of autumn color. We were struck not only by its beauty and timelessness but by how arduous the work must have been to clear and plant a vast area of Missouri prairie when the first farmers arrived – the Mississippians, the French and later in great numbers, the Germans.

Cadets from Jennings High School’s ROTC program spent hours weeding the preserve, which experts determined to be in danger of being overrun with a weed that is indigenous to China.***** and created paths for walking.

Twenty-two interpretative signs designed by art students from Christ, Light of Nations School identify the native plant species wherein foxes and wild turkeys make their home in this historic stretch of prairie; this natural wonder within 21st century St. Louis.

The graves of thousands of the earliest settlers of St. Louis -  French, Spanish, Creole, Canadian, Indian, West Indian and Afro-American – who would have known the greater prairie intimately were reburied around a bend in Calvary’s outer road, to the north and east of the prairie in 1950. Their original location was the church block laid out by Pierre Laclede in 1764 on the St. Louis Riverfront where the Old Cathedral stands today.

The Gamache Family and the Archdiocese of St. Louis placed a monument inscribed with many of their names in Section 5D of Calvary Cemetery. It stands in the grassy meadow that covers their graves, a beautiful setting as tranquil and serene as the land was when it captured the hearts of the first settlers.

How symbolic that the long passage of time (nearly two hundred years in some cases) necessitated their having to be reburied in a broad communal grave! These first St. Louisans were culturally, racially and socially diverse yet they lived and worked closely together, bound by a shared vision and the need to survive on the brink of a vast wilderness, here on the bluffs above the Mississippi.

As I walked their grave site I was reminded how rich the cultural fabric of this community had been. How often on mild spring, summer and autumn evenings you could have walked from one end of the Village of Saint Louis to the other and heard the children being sung to sleep with lullabies in languages that stretched from North America to Europe to Africa.

City founder, Pierre Laclede is named on this tall vertical monument tho’ he died and was buried near Arkansas Post on a return trip from New Orleans, never making it home. His stepson and co-founder of St. Louis, Auguste Chouteau, is listed also, although he has a tablet marker among the graves of his immediate family in the oldest section of the cemetery. The year of his birth was intentionally inscribed inaccurately on that tablet. I expect there is more of Auguste in the meadow than beneath the tablet.

Auguste’s half-brother, Pierre Chouteau, Sr. has a beautifully carved sarcophagus in the Famille Chouteau grave site atop one of the highest hills in Calvary Cemetery. It’s reached by a double, balconied staircase of marble that mirrors the entrance to his home on Main Street/Rue Royale in Old St. Louis.The sarcophagus of his mother, Marie Bourgeois Chouteau, la mere de Saint Louis, rests in another segment of the circular, compass-like grave site overlooking a valley even as her home overlooked the Mississippi River downtown. There is surely more of Marie in the grassy meadow than there is on the hilltop where her grandson, Pierre Chouteau, Jr. symbolized the family’s place in St. Louis history so stunningly .

Nearby the Early Settlers Monument is a memorial sculpted in eagle feathers to honor four Nez Perce leaders, two of whom were laid to rest in this meadow. In the autumn of 1831 they arrived in St. Louis, having walked almost two thousand miles from the present-day state of Idaho for a “Blackrobe”, a priest to explain to their people “The Book of Heaven.” Such stoicism, courage and spiritual zeal are almost unthinkable in today’s world.

Black Eagle and Speaking Eagle died in St. Louis as a result of their arduous journey. Rabbit-Leggings and No-Horns-on-His-Head perished on their journey home.

The Blackrobe their people eventually received (after a fourth delegation of Indians came to St. Louis for a priest) was the great Belgian Jesuit, Father Peter De Smet, who in the course of his ministry to tribal nations west of the Mississippi River traveled more than 180,000 miles.

Father DeSmet, who had taught English at St. Louis College (today University) found his true calling among the many tribal nations who revered him and to whom he was devoted. Originally buried in Florissant, Fr. DeSmet was re-interred nearby among the St. Louis Jesuit Community.

Last Tuesday, at the request of Maria Sullivan, I conducted an Oasis Tour of a few of Calvary Cemetery’s most historic sections. Calvary is not one of my areas of specialty and it never will be. It is far too expansive a walking area, too easy to get lost in if you’re driving, and it is a bottomless well of history. But my family graves are here, I’ve done a lot of research in specific areas and I was happy to spend a couple of hours showing this group of Seniors some of Calvary’s highlights. We barely scratched the surface.

I regret to say that I failed to find Dred Scott’s grave site for them. I’ve only succeeded once in the five times I’ve tried and then I had help from cemetery staff.

I would like to mount an initiative to install a marker of some kind near Dred Scott’s head stone that can be seen from a distance so as to facilitate people’s locating one of the most precious grave sites in St. Louis.

We did make it to William Tecumseh Sherman’s grave site where our tour ended. The tall flag pole draped with the Stars and Stripes is viewable from a great distance and serves as a much appreciated landmark. The monument raised by veterans who served under General Sherman to commemorate his son, Willie is as poignant a reminder of the devastation of war as any in The Lou. It awakened the early stirrings of the historian in me. I remember from childhood passing it on the way to and from my grandparents’ graves. It took me many years but I finally found out all I wanted to know about the little boy who is buried here.

The staff at the Calvary Cemetery Office is very knowledgeable and helpful with family and historical research. Their Historical Tour Outline and Map are free and invaluable references for negotiating one of The Lou’s deepest treasure troves, where history is preserved as a sacred legacy. Autumn is a particularly beautiful time to visit Calvary!

I would like to thank Jeanne Besselsen, Associate Director of Calvary Cemetery for generously taking the time to answer my questions regarding the evolution of the cemetery, the Clay Mansion and the Prairie Project.

References: * Calvary Cemetery Archives reference purchase of “Old Orchard Farm” from the estate of Susan Clay, who was long dead by 1853. Susan Hart Clay Duralde, tragically died of yellow fever as a  young mother in the City of New Orleans in 1825, predeceasing her famous father by twenty-seven years. **A Missouri Guide to the Show Me State – Walter A. Schroeder & Howard W. Marshall, a WPA Guide. ***Archives of Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, MO.**** Interpretive Marker in Calvary Prairie. *****Doug Ladd of the Missouri Conservancy, 2008 interview by Jim Kirchherr of KETC-TV’s Living St. Louis: Calvary Prairie.

Illustration: William Clark – painting by Charles Nelson Peale, 1810, in the public domain at wikipedia.org.

Photo Sources: Henry Clay – photographer unknown, in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet – photographed by Matthew Brady – in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Nez Perce Village – in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Calvary Prairie Interpretive Signs (3 images) – used with the kind permission of Jeanne Besselsen, the photographer; all other photos: Thomas & Maureen Kavanaugh.

Another Red October in The Lou

In October, when the fountain flows red in Kiener Plaza it means one thing – the Cardinals have made it into the play-offs. And as baseball’s post-season arrives in The Lou anticipation swells for a pennant race. Formed in 1882 the St. Louis Brown Stockings underwent a name change in 1900 taking the field that season as the St. Louis Cardinals.

Re-named for a cheeky species of song bird that thrives in North and Central America the name would stick, abbreviated fondly over time as the Red Birds and the Cards.

The hopes of five generations of St. Louisans from every socio-economic and ethnic group have risen or fallen each summer since with the fortunes of the eternal boys of summer who sometimes, with great skill and luck, ripened into the men of autumn, swinging their bats and making mad dashes around the bases. It doesn’t matter whether you drive a truck or hold a first chair in the symphony, when it comes to baseball St. Louisans are one.

The seeds for unanimity were sown over a hundred years ago in Sportman’s Park when the Cardinals gave free passes to school kids who blossomed into avid fans.

I vividly recall that generation from my childhood in the early 1950s hunched over their radios or later relaxing in front of a black and white TV with “a cold one” – a bottle of Budweiser (or in my dad’s case a bottle of Pepsi) living each play vicariously with the Cardinals. As well as the occasional admonition, “Quiet down! Musial’s at bat.”

Every generation has had its heroes but some acquired legendary status – like Rogers Hornsby who won Triple Crowns in 1922 and 1925.

Or Dizzy Dean, shown here on the cover of Time Magazine, April 15, 1935 – the last National League pitcher to win 30 games in a season.

Stan “the Man” Musial (so named by admiring Brooklyn Dodgers fans) was selected twenty-four times for All-Star play. In his second full season with the Cardinals Musial was named to the All-Star Game line-up and then to every All-Star Team in the subsequent years that he played.

Bob Gibson earned nine Gold Glove Awards for pitching, winning the Most Valuable Player Award in both the World Series of 1964 and 1967. He holds a Major League Record for thirty-five strike-outs in a World Series, seventeen of them in the same game.

Ozzie Smith became the Wizard of Baseball with 13 consecutive Gold Glove Awards as short stop and now the mighty Albert Pujols rules.

If Yankee Stadium is the house that Ruth built then Busch Stadium can be credited in large part to Stan Musial (http://baseballhall.org/hof/musial-stan) not only because he is ranked as one of the greatest hitters in baseball history but because of his strength of character.

Brewing magnate Augie Busch (August A. Busch, Jr.), who took ownership of the Cardinals in 1953 and held it until his death in 1989, made it clear that Musial would never to be traded. Like Bob Gibson, Musial would spend his entire career in professional baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals.

The quote on the base of Musial’s statue at the entrance to Busch Memorial Stadium from former Baseball Commissioner Ford C. Frick, sums Stan Musial up this way,  “Here stands baseball’s perfect warrior. Here stands baseball’s perfect knight.”

Athletes have from antiquity held a special place in human societies as champions who battled opponents with their prowess, representing and taking entire communities or nations right along with them in spirit. It’s a mystique that persists into the 21st century.

Over and above giving us something to cheer about in difficult times, the economic boost that Cardinal baseball brings to the St. Louis region has been substantial: $56,000,000 from the 2009 All-Star Game and each pennant game played here this autumn will net the area about $5.6 million dollars alone. In a tough economy this means a lot.

Having made it through post-season play to the Wold Series seventeen times the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series title ten of those times, more than any other team in the National League (tho’ a distant second to the American League’s New York Yankees and their staggering record of 27 World Series wins).

Thus it is that when Fall arrives and St. Louisans find themselves in a race for the National League Pennant along with the Cardinals, with prospects for World Series play, there’s magic in the air – scarlet in the trees, the fountain flowing red in Kiener Plaza and Red Birds running the bases. GO CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

References: Wikipedia and the Baseball Hall of Fame websites.

Photo Credits: Rogers Hornsby – 1921 Baseball Card, Stan Musial – Baseball Digest 1948, Bob Gibson – Baseball Digest 1962 and Dizzy Dean – Time Magazine 1935 – all in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Cardinals Fans at Busch Stadium 2009 – Thomas Kavanaugh; all other photos – Maureen Kavanaugh, author of this blog.

Post Script: St. Louis 12, Milwaukee 3 in Game 2! Way to go, Cardinals! Safe home.

The Wizard of Washington Avenue

There once was a wizard named Bob Cassilly who bought a building on Washington Avenue (1509 Washington Avenue to be exact) fashioned by a wizard of an earlier age named Theodore Link. This International Building was joined by a nine-story bridge to an enormous warehouse which by the end of the 20th century had become obsolete.

Pragmatists may have regarded its 600,000 square feet as wasted space, its massive brick walls as needing to be razed, but it was precisely the gargantuan, cavern-of-a-place in which wizards who conjure in steel and concrete and stone like to work their magic.

In collaboration with an amazing team of other artists, entrepreneurs and investors who shared his artistic vision, Bob Cassilly began to transform the International Shoe Company Warehouse into one of the most wildly imaginative and playful spaces on earth.

It didn’t happen overnight and there was no carefully mapped out master plan. Extraordinary amounts of discarded objects began to come together over time, in astonishing ways along with tons of concrete to form walls, slides, tree houses, stairways,  chambers, caves and crawl spaces where there had been none – piped through with operatic music – the result of which was bedazzling and exhilarating – Alice’s Wonderland, P.T. Barnum and Ringling Bros. Circus all rolled into one.

A collector from boyhood of all manner of odds and ends, Bob Cassilly had a genius for recognizing beauty – natural and man-made – where many could not until he found a way to frame it, to accentuate and give it place in a new context.

As he matured artistically Cassilly seemed as driven to salvage/preserve objects of interest and beauty – massive pieces of machinery, architectural cornices, hollowed-out tree trunks – as to create them. And create them he could! Sculpting in realistic or abstract form – metal, stone, clay, wood, concrete, fiberglass.

As it evolved and took labyrinthine shape City Museum (http://www.citymuseum.org/) became a haven for twenty-one remarkable artists in which to work and to exhibit. And it became a play space wherein thousands upon thousands of children encountered art and architecture in the most thrilling ways possible – tunneling, crawling, climbing, sliding and spiraling through it as conjured by the wizard and his cohorts.

Now and then the Wizard of Washington Avenue (who worked extensively in City Museum and in the former cement factory he was re-inventing as an adventure park near the Chain of Rocks Bridge) was commissioned to create works of art outside of St. Louis such as the stunningly, lissome 67 foot, 6 inch Giraffe at the entrance to the Dallas Zoo  (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbd/457718139/) and fourteen whimsical, fiberglass Hippopotami in Riverside Park in Manhattan (http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/riversidepark/monuments/1771). A working model for one of the latter can be seen from eight blocks east of City Museum down the Canyon of Washington Avenue, from its perch atop the International Building. It embodies the humor and surprise that characterize much of Bob’s work.

Nearly four decades ago a then young wizard, who would become the most daring artist in St. Louis history, was touring Europe while working on his Fine Arts Degree at Fontbonne College (now Fontbonne University).

Passing through St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Cassilly caught sight of a man attacking Michelangelo’s Pieta with a hammer and wrestled him to the ground. Such bold risk would also characterize his artwork and entrepreneurship.

Wizards, whether they work in words, numbers, elements, music or art are notorious for making their own rules and disregarding the laws of other mortals. The Wizard of Washington Avenue perched a school bus on the edge of a ten-story warehouse later adding a Ferris Wheel to the same rooftop and was chastised by the city for replacing a ruinous wall alongside St. Louis’ most elegant park with one for which he supplied the materials, labor and artistry. Albeit without permission.

St. Louis lost a visionary artist sometime Sunday when Robert Cassilly, Jr. tumbled to his death inside a bulldozer while shaping a pyramid in Cementland, an artistic vision he’d been struggling to realize for ten years.

And a pall descended over the community Monday as news spread that the founder and inspiration of City Museum was gone. It was somewhat lightened by the perception that his spirit will live on here.

Beyond a substantial body of art and preservation work, the enduring legacy of the Wizard of Washington Avenue will be the joy and excitement of every child who has physically explored City Museum.

Not to mention the wishful thinking of every adult (grandparent!) who would love for just a little while to be ten years old again and negotiate the magical places wrought by his imagination.

Sleep deep and peacefully, Bob Cassilly. St. Louis will miss you!

Photo Credits: Winged Bird & Cupola in MonstroCity, City Museum’s Architectural Hall, Found Art Tree Sculpture in MonstroCity, and The Caves at City Museum – used with the generous permission of the photographer, Patrick Barber.

Michelangelo’s Pieta, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican, 2008 – photographed by Stanislav Traykov, Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike at wikipedia.org: File: Michelangelo’s Pieta 5450.

Bob Cassilly at Work in City Museum  – kindly provided by Tracie LaRiccia, Group Reservations and Rick Erwin, Director of City Museum.

Children at Play in the Ball Pit in MonstroCity – Maureen Kavanaugh, author of this blog.

All of the remaining outstanding photographs of City Museum, St. Louis were taken by and are used with the kind permission of Thomas Kavanaugh, Triune Communications, St. Louis, Missouri.

St. Louis Remembers 9/11/2001

St. Louisans go to Forest Park for many reasons – to ice skate and sled down Art Hill in the winter, to boat, fish, jog, bike, play tennis, golf and handball. We go to enjoy outdoor, musical theater at the Muny, explore the zoo, view great painting,  sculpture and artifacts at the Art and History Museums or constellations at the Planetarium; to picnic and to wed.

But today we went to remember 2,977 innocent victims of a terrorist attack on the morning of September 11, 2001 and to show our solidarity with their mourning families and friends.

This was a picture perfect day in St. Louis – just like the fateful day ten years ago when so many Americans went to work but never returned home because they were scattered in a Pennsylvania field, crushed inside the Pentagon in Washington, DC or buried in the rubble of the World Trade Center’s massive, twin towers in New York City.

Former President George W. Bush referenced September 11, 2011 on Saturday as the single deadliest day in U.S. history since the Battle of Antietam in 1862. On that horrific September day 23,000 of the more than 600,000 Americans to perish in the Civil War lost their lives – a staggering number still, almost one hundred and fifty years out.

I’ve been reading two great books over much of the summer – Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond and 1861: The Civil War Awakening  by Adam Goodheart; the first brilliantly conceived by a professor of geology and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles and the second, deeply insightful – the work of an historian and journalist.

I’ve found myself reflecting a lot upon the similarity in political tone and rhetoric between the U.S. of 2011 and the contentious, divisive U.S. of 1861, and wondering whether this daring, experimental republic of ours can survive, whether we, as a society will survive.

I’m hopeful that we will. For in spite of past injustices and continuing inadequacies the United States of America remains a beacon and a refuge for much of the world. A 2009 International Gallup Survey revealed that some seven hundred million adults would migrate to another country if they had a choice. Nearly 24 % of these (more than 165,000,000 persons) would choose the U.S. Canada came in second with 6.5 %.*

Much has changed since September 11, 2001 – in the nation as a whole – and in St. Louis. And yet one of our greatest strengths has remained constant. We are an ethnically diverse, culturally rich nation of people.

I was reminded of this, this afternoon as I walked around the Grand Basin and climbed Art Hill with my husband, both of us capturing images and hearing the many accents of the people of St. Louis – Russian, Sudanese, Hispanic, Vietnamese and American – just in the little while we were there.

One decade to the day of the greatest terrorist attack in U.S. history this republic remains intact. We are yet one nation, under God, multidudinous in our beliefs, opinions, talents – often fractious – but constitutionally indivisible, offering liberty and working to achieve justice for all.

September 11, 2001 Commemorations began in St. Louis, here on Art Hill in Forest Park timed to the moment the first airplane hit the World Trade Center in New York City on September the 11th 2001. The sweeping display of American flags, one representing each victim of the multiple attacks, was the initiative of Rich Randall of Pace Properties.**

A March to the Arch and Interfaith Service followed the opening ceremony with the day’s beautifully orchestrated events culminating in an evening concert and candlelight vigil back here on Art Hill.

St. Louis joins the rest of the nation in remembering all of those who were lost ten years ago today – nearly half a continent away and yet part of us, and in celebrating the courage of those who went to their aid.

Irregardless of where we were on September 11, 2001 none of us will ever forget what took place that day and how it shaped our dreams for a future of peace and of security.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration

**http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_97ab94f0-6a52-5361-8d81-a2108eb24097.html

Photo Credits: Ground Zero – File: September 17, 2001.jpg – by Chief Photographers Mate, Eric J. Tilford, United States Navy. All other photos: Thomas Kavanaugh and Maureen O’Connor Kavanaugh, author of this blog. To enlarge any photo simply click on it.

St. Louis of France and The Lou

Today marks the seven hundred and forty-first anniversary of the death of St. Louis of France, for whom Pierre Laclede named a fur trading post that evolved into the Port of St. Louis. I visited what St. Louisans  refer to as the Old Cathedral this morning to bring a note of thanks to Monsignor Jerome Billing, who generously opened the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France on Monday evening (after hours) to the national leadership team of Ascension Health, for whom I was giving an historic walking tour of downtown St. Louis. Ascension Health has early roots in the first hospital staffed by the Daughters of Charity in this city, on land donated by John Mullanphy.

I’m rarely in the Old Cathedral at night, when the interior glows with particular beauty in contrast to the darkness filling the basilica’s monumental windows. Tranquil by day, the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France is hushed and luminous at night. The centuries in which the building is steeped crowd my mind with images from the past even as a futuristic, ribbon of steel arches in a window to the east.

Once upon a time, you could look out the cathedral’s west windows, beyond the statue of St. Joan (Jeanne d’Arc) and see covered wagons being drawn by horses over Third Street (originally Rue des Les Granges/today Memorial Drive). You might catch a glimpse of Abe Lincoln climbing Market Street to defend a client in the Courthouse on the hill above, or find Sam Clemens making his way down the bluffs to pilot a steamboat to New Orleans and back, or watch a delegation of Osages making their way to treat with William Clark in his Council Room (which today would stand just beyond the north leg of the Gateway Arch). So much history has passed before these windows!

Situated on the only piece of land in St. Louis that has never been bought or sold, the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France is the fourth Catholic Church to stand on the third square that Pierre Laclede laid out in the center of the village in 1764 for a village church and cemetery.

The first in 1770 was a simple, poteaux-en-terre (vertical post) church replaced six years later with a larger, white oak structure in the same style. There, in December of 1809, Sacagawea witnessed the baptism of her little son, Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, after which William Clark adopted him and raised him in St. Louis with his children.

Named for the patron saint of the French king Laclede served in the military, the first church on this site and those that followed it, bore the name of a 13th century monarch who was also a knight. Mounted on a steed atop Art Hill in Forest Park, Louis IX of France is a striking if perhaps surprising representative for an American city.

The earliest surviving sculpture of St. Louis dates to the 14th century, a little over one hundred years after he died. Reputed to be a true likeness of the man who ruled France for fifty plus years, rode into battle and was called upon by other European monarchs to mediate disputes before all-out war erupted, he does not appear the modern image of a warrior. But this knight was also an ascetic. Father of eleven children, founder of hospitals and the first court of appeals in the western world, Louis IX would endow the Sorbonne and erect in Paris one of the greatest cathedrals ever built, Sainte-Chappelle, a soaring, breathtakingly beautiful monument of faith.

The facade of the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France (which held the title of oldest Catholic cathedral west of the Mississippi River until it was designated a basilica by Pope John XXIII for its historic significance) bears inscriptions in four languages: French (the first language of St. Louis), English, Latin and Hebrew. This is the only place remaining downtown where the French origins of La Poste de Saint Louis are clearly engraved in stone:

Ma maison sera appelle la maison de priere./My house shall be called the house of prayer.

In 1907 an enormous cathedral basilica began to rise four blocks north and some three miles west of the Old Cathedral, about as different in scale and style as one can imagine, for a community that had far-outgrown the original.

Romanesque-Revival with a Byzantine interior and adorned with eighty-three thousand square feet of mosaics, the New Cathedral also bears the name of St. Louis, whose life is illustrated from childhood to adulthood in tesserae panels lining the narthex (the basilica’s entry and gathering space).

Louis became king upon the death of his father, while still a boy. His mother, Blanche of Castille, reigned in his stead until he married at age nineteen and assumed full reign of France. A fine portrait of St. Louis kneeling in prayer the night before his coronation hangs on the southeast wall of the Old Cathedral. It was a gift to Bishop Louis DuBourg, first bishop of the Louisiana Territory, from King Louis XVIII of France, a descendant of St. Louis. The fleur-de-lis which cover his shield and cape make up his family coat of arms, and have become another symbol identifiable with the City of St. Louis.

The mosaic art work in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis is stunning. Over eight thousand colors reflect the skill and devotion of artists who fashioned it over three quarters of the 20th century. The first humble church of St. Louis is illustrated there amidst the early history of the St. Louis Archdiocese. The archangels which span the length of the basilica walls with outspread wings are splendid. But one of my favorite sections depicts St. Louis as a child being taught by his mother.

I grew up learning about the human frailties of St. Louis of France as well as his strength and wisdom. Between the two basilicas, which capture such different aspects of his personality and such different eras of St. Louis history, I have come to understand his place in a far greater mystery and design.

I left the New Cathedral in The Lou’s Central West End this August 25th afternoon as I always do – in awe.

But the image that stayed with me as I made my way home was the serenity of the Old Cathedral drenched in the morning light, and the quiet figure standing guard within the sanctuary for whom this city is named.

Photo Credits: “Sainte Chapelle – Upper Chapel, Paris, France, October 14, 2005″ – author: Didier B(San 67fr) from Wikimedia Commons at wikipedia.org. Attribution: Share Alike 2.5; “14th Century Statue of St. Louis” – in the public domain at wikipedia.org. All other photos: Maureen Kavanaugh, author of this blog, taken with my cell phone.

References: The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis Brochure and Inscriptions on the Body of the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France on the St. Louis Riverfront.

Illustration Credit: “The First Church in St. Louis” – in the public domain at wikipedia.org.

Cruisin’ at Drewes’ in The Lou

This past week-end the wheel of the year turned in St. Louis, edging a little closer to the autumnal equinox and ushering in the most perfect week of summer thus far – with warm, breezy afternoons and deliciously cool evenings. And it was only the 12th of August!

Saturday arrived sunny but without the scorching temperatures that characterized July and early August. And by the time a full moon rose high in the night sky, record crowds lounged on cars and filled the sidewalks in front of Ted Drewes Frozen Custard Stand (http://www.teddrewes.com/home/default.aspx#) spilling over into Chippewa Street.

Record-breaking crowds are not a novelty at Ted Drewes (a.k.a. affectionately as Drewes’ or Ted’s) where a fourth generation in the family business caters to the epicurean delights of not only St. Louisans but visitors passing through The Lou from coast to coast on Route 66. “Epicurean delights?” you may scoff. “At a frozen custard stand?” Absolutely! As anyone from Yogi Berra to Itzhak Perlman will attest while working his way through a banana split, aboaco mocha concrete, or a leaning, tower of pisa, five-scoop, vanilla cone.

And oh! The scrumptious impossibilities of an island, Hawaiian concrete a la pineapple, bananas, coconut and macadamia nuts on a frigid February night, or a Caramel Apple Sundae on a crisp November day, or a spicy Cindermint Shake while your Balsam fir tree is being wrapped for the trip home, then to be strung with lights. Best of all you can request whatever concoction of extras – fresh fruit to toppings – that your imagination can conjure. St. Louisans take great pleasure in creating their own specialties!

Ted Drewes, Jr., the present owner, once told my husband, Tom that he prefers his custard plain – without any trimmings. But then he grew up with the recipe Ted Drewes, Sr. purchased along with a frozen-custard- making-machine in 1929 and then perfected. Perfected it he did – and then swore the family to secrecy – a tradition that lingers at the Drewes’ two remaining south city custard stands.*

Featured on the Food Network’s “Feasting on Asphalt” and always near the top of The Lou’s Must-Do List, St. Louisans mark practically every occasion of note with visits to Ted’s – from winning games, graduations and proms to Bar/Bat Mitzahs. Yes, Ted Drewes is certified Kosher and although it’s best when fresh from the window, they ship overnight coast to coast; something probably necessitated by St. Louis natives who occasionally require a Ted Drewes’ fix in California or Rhode Island.

Back in the day, Drewes was a perfect place to cruise in a spanking-new convertible or vintage jalopy and to watch the girls – or boys – go by, while savoring some outrageously decadent dessert. It’s a rite of passage for St. Louisans to introduce their children to Ted Drewes’ much as Parisians introduce their youngsters to wine. Though  frozen custard is not an acquired taste – from the first taste one is generally hooked.

Regardless of how the Cards are doing – whether the game is a win or a loss – St. Louisans head to Ted Drewes to celebrate or drown their sorrows in a congenial atmosphere of laissez-faire. On a perfect night like last Saturday night, when the moon is full and the air cool and sweet, the crowds can be daunting.

But within minutes, the efficient kids who produce and dress the custard will have taken your order (you will insult them if you ask whether they want to write it down even if you’re ordering in amounts of fifteen different selections or more) and handed it to you, occasionally holding a “concrete” upside down with the spoon standing upright, to prove you’ve gotten the concrete you ordered and NOT a shake. Meanwhile you have the fun of watching the crowd, who can be turned out in anything from swimsuits to wedding gown and tuxes.

There are a lot of things one can accomplish with a degree in Sociology from Washington University, St. Louis – but running a mind-bogglingly, successful custard stand for half a century is probably one of the least expected. Yet that’s what Ted Drewes, Jr. has done, employing hundreds of St. Louis teens over the years, providing their first taste of the business world along with the benefits of an Educational Assistance Program that allows high school and college students to work their shift obligations around their busy course schedules and incentivizes them to complete their education.

When I asked Ted’s son-in-law, Travis Dillon (manager of the signature Chippewa stand) whether Ted regrets or still enjoys the career choice he made decades ago, he responded, “It’s his passion! His life.” Ted Drewes, Sr. had a well-earned reputation in St. Louis as an amateur tennis champion but Ted Drewes, Jr. has left a mark on the St. Louis community for pleasure and delight that’s simply unbeatable. The Lou without Ted Drewes would not be The Lou. Long may he prosper!

* For a detailed history of Ted Drewes Frozen Custard and a wonderfully nostalgic  description of the St. Louis in which it evolved check out Johnny Rabbit’s blog post: http://www.antiquewhs.com/2008/Inside_STL/teddrewes.htm”>

Photo Credits: Ted Drewes Frozen Custard in Saint Louis, Missouri – image created by Alexander Smith on 7 August, 2004; original uploader – Indrian at en.wikipedia. Permission to use this photo: GFDL-with-Disclaimers; released under the GNU Free Documentation License. Official Route 66 Ted Drewes Marker and Crowd at Ted Drewes - Thomas Kavanaugh; remaining photos – Maureen Kavanaugh, author of this blog.

Founding St. Louis – A 21st Century Perspective

I cannot visit the Gateway Arch with its splendid views of river and cityscape without recalling Pierre Laclede, his vision and far-sightedness, and how much we owe to him as a community. For while the Arch is the work of a brilliant, Finnish-born architect named Eero Saarinenn, it is Pierre Laclede Liguest who gave us St. Louis.

Two hundred and thirty-three years after his death en route to Saint Louis from New Orleans, Laclede continues to inspire and to mystify historians. But with the publication of Founding St. Louis, First City of the New West* by University of Missouri Professor J. Frederick Fausz, we have a clearer picture of Laclede than has been possible since he walked the landscape here and began marking trees for a fur trading post where the Gateway Arch stands today.

That the waters of the mighty Mississippi have not reached that point on the bluffs since 1764 may be less impressive if you haven’t seen the Mississippi River fifteen miles wide at St. Louis, or Front Street (Lenore K. Sullivan Boulevard between the Eads and the Poplar Street Bridges) frequently underwater. Flooding was not problematic when Laclede lived here because only a ribbon of road (widened from a single crack in the four-story wall of limestone fronting the river) which we know today as Market Street gave the Mississippi access to the village that stood above it.

No definitive portrait of Pierre Laclede survives. The painting in the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park may be Laclede or a descendant of his brother Jean. But the sculpture modeled on Laclede’s grandson, Pierre Chouteau, Jr., by Jonathan Scott Hartley for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904 is possibly more dependable; the features and mannerisms of ancestors having an uncanny way of showing up in their descendants.

That sculpture (which I’ve only seen in photographs) captured well the poise and weariness of the city’s founder in his latter years. It’s almost entirely different in tone and style from George Julian Zolnay’s sculpture of Pierre Laclede that flanks City Hall in the northwest corner of Washington Square – the lithe, dynamic, diplomatic former soldier of France and entrepreneur, who so impressed and won the friendship of the Osage chiefs with whom he entered into partnership, here and in the North American wilderness beyond St. Louis.

Frederick Fausz describes Laclede in greater depth than any historian to date, his character flaws as well as his greatness, placing him within the broad and narrow contexts of time and place. Thus deepening the reader’s understanding of the setting in France from which Pierre Laclede came, and New Orleans and the Upper Louisiana Territory where strategies for trade were being orchestrated; illustrating why Laclede was uniquely equipped to establish an international trading center in the mid-Mississippi River Valley beneficial to his family and his trading partners, on which early St. Louisans would build and prosper.

Fausz’s extensive, personal research and his comprehensive correlation of the research and publications of other historical specialists of the Louisiana Territory and the emerging American West, result in an enlightened and dramatic perspective on the founding of St. Louis, which Fausz terms “the first city of the new West”. This modest, 254 page, quality paperback is a history book to sink your teeth into and savor. My copy is marked with a record, thirty-two post-it notes.

Not because all of the information is new (although much of it is – Fausz’s reference to Laclede’s name literally translating as “the gate” gives added meaning to his paving the way for the Gateway to the West) but because Frederick Fausz has done such a masterful job of integrating various, existing source material into one concise and powerful whole. An excellent storyteller, Fausz demonstartes that one does not have to exaggerate or fictionalize history for it to be compelling. If this professor teaches like he writes (and I’ve no doubt that he does) his students are fortunate indeed.

Founding St. Louis, First City of the New West by J. Frederick Fausz is a must-read for anyone interested in St. Louis history and a true understanding of St. Louis’s critical and unique place in the broader scope of U.S. history. If Pierre Laclede was alive today, if he made his way up the Arch staircase, and up the tram to the top of the Gateway Arch would he recognize the view? I think that he would. Not only because I feel that he’s never entirely left here but because I think he would see below him the realization of his dream.

*Founding St. Louis, First City of the New West – J. Frederick Fausz, The History Press, Charleston, SC, 2011.

Illustrations:  Cover of Founding St. Louis, First City of the New West – used with the permission of The History Press, Charleston, SC; Map of Western New France Including the Illinois Country by Vincenzo Coronelli, 1688 – in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Chief of the Little Osages by Charles B. J. de Saint-Memin – Wikimedia Commons; Fort Pierre, South Dakota 1839 by Karl Bodmer – in the public domain at wikipedia.org; Fort de Chartres Powder Magazine Building (which was standing when Laclede stored his imports at Fort de Chartres in 1763) – Attribution: l, Kbh3rd – Wikimedia Commons, wikipedia.org.

Photos: The St. Louis Riverfront During the Great Flood of 1993 – Thomas Kavanaugh; Downtown St. Louis from the Top of the Gateway Arch and  Sculpture of Pierre Laclede, Founder of St. Louis at City Hall – Maureen O’Connor Kavanaugh, author of this blog.