ALBUM — o:b'- SAINT LOUIS ILLUSTRATED. CHAS. JUEHNE & CO , SOUTH KASr CORNER PMFTH AND OMVE STREETS, ST. LOUTS. F.»tT€Atu-i-nntiHS toaet^f Couyr>:»$^ ,.> (hr y-ifr i^75. % Ck'Vi. Juefin'-, hi thr Office n/ Hie Lihrartan o/ CoHgrtAW^ ai WaahinffOn, ^ O, C. '4-1 V INTKODUCTION, >r(HE life of a city is like the life of a man. It begins in utter feebleness, is nursed -1- through the stage of infantile helplessness on mother's milk, pap or porridge, and if it comes safely through the diseases incident to early childhood, gradually advances to the brighter hope and fuller vitality of youth, waxes stronger in the energy and proud achieve- ments of manhood, and gradually falls into the sere and yellow leaf of old age, and finally perishes from the face of the earth. The life of one is reckoned by years, the other by centuries ; but each must have its beginning, culmination and close. Thousands perish m infancy. The map of the United States is cumbered and confused with the names of a mul- titude of these embryo cities that remind one of the epitaph on the infant's headstone : "Here lies poor little Jimmy Creath, Who died at one for want of breath ; And since he was so quickly done for, We wonder what he was begun for." The western prairies are full of those grand railroad centers that were io be, whose proud historic names new indicate nothing higher than a blacksmkh's shop and a corner grocery. But here and there the indications of nature and the providence of passing events have pointed out the sites of great and opulent cities -centers of industry and of the world's commerce. Saint Louis is one of these, and it will be the mission of the Album to sketch, by aid of pen and pencil, the origin, progress, present condition and future prospects of this great Western Metropolis. The true history of a city is found in the lives of its founders and builders, and in their architectural, artistic, commercial and industrial achievements. It will be the purpose of the publishers of this work to produce such an illustrated description of Saint Louis, embracing sketches and portraits of distinguished citizens, in the past and present, with such illustrations of noted buildings, parks, and other scenery, as shall make it a gem of art, appealing to the pride and good taste of every one-something that shall be as distinguished for its literary excellence as its artistic beauty— something that every Saint Louisian will love to preserve in his library or on his center table 2 ALB UM OF SAINT L O UlS. The publishers are aware that feeble efforts have been made to illustrate Saint Louis in coarse wood cuts, but think the time has come for something better and of a higher order, both in illustration and description. For the latter work they have secured the aid of an old citizen, whose ability as a writer is well known throughout the West, and they propose to spare neither money nor labor to make the work all that is promised in the prospectus. The first number is issued under the difficulties attending every new enterprise, and is but an earnest of better things to come. Feeling assured that their enterprise will meet at the hands of the citizens a liberal patronage, they will with redoubled efforts continue to improve both matter and illustration of the Album of Saint Louis. w^ SAINT LOUIS: PRESENT— PAST— PROSPECTIVE. 'HEN De Soto first came upon the banks of the great river that gave him immortality , , and a grave, we can imagine the intense joy, wonder and curiosity that filled the mind of the brave explorer. His attention was first directed to the immense flood of water that rolled bv in silent majesty, bearing upon its turbid waves spoils from many a forest, and, mingled in its current, the soil and water of half a continent. After ascertammg the breadth, depth and volume of this mighty flood, the next inquiry would naturally be, whence does it come and whither does it go? If gifted with the power of penetrating space, his mind would first travel up, up, and still up for thousands of miles, through forest, pra.ne and mountain gorge, until he saw its fountains nourished by the semi-arctic snows of the Itasca, or the everiasting storms that breed and brood amongst the cliff's and canyons of the Rocky Mountains ; and then turning his eye downward, he would see where the accumulated flood was poured into the bosom of the great Gulf. In treating of Saint Louis, the great commercial center of the Mississippi Valley, we propose to pursue a somewhat similar course : first sketching the city as it is, with its halt million of souls: its architectural characteristics, its extent, population and wealth, its varied interests and industries, its railroads, steamboats and barges, its commerce by land and water, its manufacturing interests of every kind, its banking and insurance capital, its array of pro- fessional men and what they do, its school-houses, colleges, churches, ond benevolent institu- tions, and wliat these intellectual and moral agencies achieve-in short, every object and interest that makes Saint Louis what it is. , Having surveyed the city in its present condition, we will trace its history down from its humble origin to the present time, and glance at the proud destiny which nature and provi- dence seem plainly to foreshadow. It is intended to devote each number of the Album, or two successive numbers if necessary, to the consideration of a single interest, and then pass to others. For this reason the present introductory chapter is general in its charac:er, and indicative of the course to be pursued in the future conduct of the work. The great cities of the Old World have a history running back through long cyles of centuries for one, two, or three thousand years. Rome, the "Eternal City," Venice the Beautiful, London, Paris, and other great centers of wealth, power, learning, art, toil and traffic, go back for ages to find the rude hamlet that grew into a village, town, city and finally became a worid's metropolis. The city was first a walled fortress, to protect its inhabi- tants from hostile incursions, and and hence was confined to the smallest possible space. 4 ALB UM OF SAINT L O UJS. Modern civilization, with an entire change in the modes of warfare, has rendered walls useless, and substituted expansion for contraction in laying out the streets and avenues of a town, thus contributing largely to the health and comfort of its citizens. The cities of Europe have had a slow growth through a period of many centuries, some- times checked by changes in the currents of commerce, and sometimes almost destroyed by the ravages of fire, plague, pestilence and famine, or the pillage and plunder of conquering armies. Some of them have long since reached the culminating point of their greatness, and are now dying a death as melancholy as their rise and power were glorious. Modern Rome has the ruins of a mighty city buried beneath its present streets and temples — a city that was once instinct with the life of millions. Venice, Naples, and other great cities of Italy, are also doomed to the slow death that follows the loss of power and the impoverishment of the country that gave them birth and support. American cities were first founded on the European plan, with narrow streets, and sometimes surrounded, not by walls, but by a stockade, as a defense against incursions by the savages. One hundred and eleven years ago, during the month of February, 1764, Pierre Laclede Liguest, with a few companions, founded the city of Saint Louis by building a few log cabins and surrounding them with a rude palisade, somewhere in the neighborhood of Walnut and Main streets. The present business part of the city was then a dense forest, while the upper plateau, extending from Fifth street west, was an open prairie. These early adventurers sought the fur and peltry trade from the Upper Missouri, and their choice of location proved their wisdom. No other site could have answered so well for that purpose, or for the grand design of founding a great and opulent city. Just below the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri, the two great rivers of the continent, it naturally commanded tilt <^rade from the vast country bordering on these rivers and their upper affluents. These great natural advantages became at one time a serious obstacle to the progress and prosperity of Saint Louis. When the cluster of log huts grew to be a town, and then a city, its natural facilities were so great that the good people feared no rivalry and thought it folly to improve upon the good gifts vouchsafed by the God of nature. What need of railroads for a city on the banks of a river that furnished, with its tributaries, more than twenty thousand miles of navigable water? And so the good people of the growing town fell into a Rip Van Winkle slumber and dreamed blissful dreams of steamboats, keelboats, beaver packs, buffalo robes and Indian dog feasts, until they waked up one morning and found their city half fenced in with iron rails. The surprise had a most salutary influence upon the dreamers, and the result has been the construction of the grandest system of railroads in the world, embracing sixteen trunk roads, radiating toward every point of the compass, making the city the half-way house between England and China, and the trade center for a score of great States and Territories. These remarks belong to the present rather than the past, and are inserted here to show how a great city may spoil its fortunes and fail in its destiny by trusting too much to natural advantages. ALB UM OF SAINT L O UIS. 5 But before returning to the log cabin and palisades, to speak of the city's origin, it may not be improper, in this connection, to allude to another circumstance which has contributed perhaps as much as all others combined, to make Saint Louis the metropolis of the Mississippi Valley. This circumstance is the late encouragement of mechanical industries. Cities may have become rich, but never great, by commerce alone. The reason is simple enough. A million of dollars invested in trade requires but a principal and a half dozen clerks to manage all the details of the business. The same million invested in manufactures will give employ- ment to a thousand operatives, and support five thousand people It took Saint Louis long years to learn this simple lesson in political economy ; but once learned, its fruits are seen in making it the third manufacturing city in America, with an annual product of more than two hundred millions of dollars in value. This embraces every- thing, from the work of the humble artisan to the production of 'he skillful artist, and from the workshop with its single tenant to the huge factory with its thousand operatives. It is not extravagant to estimate that 300,000 people in Saint Louis are directly or indirectly supported by its mechanical industries. While therefore we give credit and glory to the merchant princes of the city, to such men as Campbell, Shaw, Crow, Greeley, Meier, Chouteau, Dodd, Davis, January, Appleton, Von Phul, Jaccard, Moody, Cole, Edgell, Barr, Shapleigh, McCreery, Sickles, Block, Schulenburg, Blow, Grimsley, Chadbourne, Shryock, Roe, Ames, Morrison, Scruggs, Samuel, and many others who have made the city illustrious for energy, liberality and fair dealing ; let us not forget to award an equal share of honor to such men as Bogy, the Filleys, Bridge, Harrison, Valle, Garrison, Gaty, Allen, McCune, Cummings, Fagin, Plant, Bain, Catlin, Stanard, Ferguson, Cupples, the Belchers, Helmbacher, Laflin, Richeson, Mitchell, Schaeffer, and a multitude of others, who have made the city no less celebrated for the excellence, variety and extent of its art products. SAINT LOUIS AS IT IS. / I V HE purpose of this preliminary chapter is to furnish a general view in general terms, of -*- the present status of the city of Saint Louis; glancing at its position, population and peculiar characteristics as a metropolis ; summarizing the facts with regard to its social, benevolent, moral and intellectual agencies, and its commercial and industrial interests ; thus preparing the way for a more detailed consideration of these difl'erent topics in future numbers of the Album. 6 ALBUM OF SAINT LOUIS. No inland city in the world has a more eligible position than Saint Louis, or one that gives promise of greater wealth, power and prestige in the near future. Nature has lavished upon it such a combination of favors and advantages as can nowhere else be found. Situated upon an elevated plateau, on the west side of the Mississippi, where it is free from miasmatic winds, all the local and climatic influences are favorable to health ; and, as a consequence, few large cities can show a lower annual percentage of mortality. Stretching out from the immediate bounds of the city to the north, west and south, and beyond the American Bottom on the east, are millions of acres of fine land, just undulating enough for drainage, diversified with forest, field and farm, and presenting thousands of choice building sites, all within a half hour's travel of the great business center. This fact encourages expansion and scatters the inhabi- tants over two or three hundred square miles of territory, thus adding another powerful ele- ment of health and general prosperity. The limits of the city proper extend about fourteen miles from north to south along the river, and reach back from one to five miles towards the west, embracing nearly fifty square miles of surface. Within these limits there are now upwards of forty-four thousand dwellings, and nearly, if not quite, 500,000 inhabitants. If the suburban towns and villages, most of whose people have their daily business in the city proper, should be counted in, the population would exceed half a million. The city is traversed in different directions by six hundred streets and avenues, with an ^gg^'^g^t^ length of more than two hundred miles. In the eastern and southern sections of the city, these streets are generally narrow^ while out in the residence portions they are ex- panded into a comfortable width, and in some cases approximate to the character of boulevards. The architecture of the business parts of the city is more distinguished for solidity than orna- ment, although there are some splendid edifices used for mercantile purposes. In the central and western portions of Saint Louis, on those streets and avenues devoted to private resi- dences, there are hundreds of mansions that will compare well with similar structures in any city of America. In fact, most of the buildings erected for residence or business purposes within the last few years, are not only substantial, large and convenient, but exhibit the highest skill of the architect in their plans and construction. Some of these, as well as the public buildings of the city, will receive more special notice in connection with illustrations. In the matter of parks Saint Louis has at last exhibited a commendable spirit of liberality, and made such provision of breathing-places for the multitudes of her present and coming people, as will add greatly to the health and happiness of future generations. There are ten parks or open squares in and about the city, containing in the aggregate more tiian two thou- sand acres of ground. Forest Park, the last inaugurated enterprise of this kind, lies west of Grand Avenue, and contains 1,375 acres of land admirably adapted for such a purpose, and with proper improvements will become the pride and glory of the citizens of the Western Metropolis. ALBUM OF SAINT LOUIS. 7 The avenues of commerce leading from the city are equal in number, extent and capacity to those of any great trade center in America. Saint Louis stands like the apocalyptic angel, " with one foot on the land and the other on the sea," beckoning to hersolf the white-winged messengers of commerce on every sea and ocean, and stretching out her iron arms to embrace the inland trade of half a continent. Standing beside the Father of Waters, which, with its score of navigable tributaries, is properly called an "inland sea," her steam marine is equal to that of any inland city of the world, and this natural channel of trade and travel has been supplemented by railroads that radiate to every point of the compass. Six trunk roads stretch out to the north, west and south-west, ramifying a dozen States and Territories between the Mississippi and the Pacific ; while to the east, north-east and south-east, ten other lines con- nect the city with the whole railroad system of the Northern, Middle and Southern States. To bring these channels of commerce into the heart of the city she has spanned the mighty flood with pillars of granite and ribs of steel, constructing a bridge that will remain for generations a proud monument to the genius of its great architect, and a source of incalculable benefits to the trade and travel of the West A better notion of the inter-state commerce of Saint Louis may be gained by the follow- ing figures : During the calendar year of 1874, there were 6,672 arrivals and departures of steamboats and barges, transporting nearly ten million tons of freight. These vessels navi- gate the upper and lower Mississippi, the Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Cumberland, Kentucky, Red, White, Arkansas, Illinois, Osage, Yellowstone and some other rivers, and bring a por- tion of the trade of twenty western states and territories to the metropolis of the Mississippi Valley. During the busiest portions of the year the sixteen trunk railroads centering in Saint Louis run 290 passenger and freight trains in or out of the city every day, transporting an average of 14,000 passengers and about 30,000 tons of freight. These trains, with their con- necting lines, reach every point from the northern lakes to the southern Gulf, and fiom the granite hills of Maine to the gold fields of the Pacific, linking the city to all the states, terri- tories, provinces and business centers of America, by more than 50,000 miles of iron road. The mercantile interests of Saint Louis employ many millions of capital, and give em- ployment and support to a large portion of her citizens. The wholesale and retail drygoods trade alone employs a capital of $15,000,000, with annual sales exceeding $40,000,000. The annual sales of boots, shoes and clothing amount to upwards of $20,000,000. The wholesale trade in drugs, hats and caps, china and glass, and jewelry, aggregates $13,000,000 annually ; while in groceries, hardware, stoves, castings, carriages, furniture, provisions, and other branches of trade, the amount exceeds the sum total of the above items. We shall strive to give exact data on all these subjects as they come up for special notice from month to month. The present purpose is simply to indicate the various interests and industries that occupy the hands and brains of half a million of people. As additional items illustrative of this branch of the subject, it may be stated that the foreign value of goods received through the Saint Louis Custom-House in 1874, amounted to $5,573,356, and the duties to $1,674,116. 8 ALBUM OF SAINT LOUIS. The balances at the Saint Louis Clearing-House for 1874 aggregated $128,785,578. The receipts of cattle, sheep and hogs for the same year amounted to 1,652,492 head; and of cotton to 125,000 bales. The manufacturing interests of Saint Louis have grown from nothing up to immense pro- portions, and embrace a very wide range of industries. In this department iron occupies more labor and capital than any other product, and the annual yield of our furnaces, foundries, factories, and workshops, amounts to many thousand tons and many millions of dollars. Then come a great number of mechanical industries employing many thousand operatives in work- ing upon other metals, wood, textiles, and other material. We have already alluded to the fact that Saint Louis is the third manufacturing city in America, and exhibits an annual pro- duct exceeding $200,000,000. It will be the purpose of the editor to fully set forth this department as one involving the most vital interests of the city. Passing from material interests to moral agencies, it may be remarked in general terms that Saint Louis compares favorably with her sister cities of America, in the extent and effi- ciency of all those elevating, enlightening and humanizing influences that make a people great and powerful as well as rich. Mind is money as well as time, and every degree of added intelligence, combined with virtue, in a community, increases its wealth as certainly as would the development of mines of gold and silver. A half million Comanches or Hottentots would make the half billion of wealth in Saint Louis as worthless as the idle wind, and every advance in intellectual and moral culture adds to the value of its real estate just as certainly as the opening of new channels of commerce. Fortunately for the intellectual wealth of the city an early provision by government secured a magnificent school fund, which, under careful management, has grown to the princely sum of $2,000,000. The interest on this fund, together with the state and county school moneys, and the amount derived from a small tax, supplies nearly $1,000,000 a year to sus- tain and promote the educational interests of the city. Under the management of an intelli- gent and enterprising Board of Directors, buildings and other facilities are constantly added, and at this time the public school property of Saint Louis amounts to nearly two millions of dollars in value. The system embraces sixty schools, conveniently distributed, and showing an enrollment of 42,058 pupils for the year 1874. '^^^ executive management of this grand educational machinery is now in the hands of Superintendent W. T. Harris, a gentleman whose distinguished ability and untiring energy give continued growth, improvement and prosperity to the whole system. The parochial and private schools and colleges of the city embrace an attendance of about 22,000, aggregating a total of 64,000 pupils and students enrolled in the different institutions of Saint Louis, and making its school system equal in efficiency and completeness to that of any city in the world. The Public School Library, established only a few years since, has become an institution of great value, and numbers upon its catalogue more than 35,000 volumes. ALBUM OF SA/XT LOUIS. 9 The Mercantile Librar}', organized nearly thirty years ago, has become a powerful agency for good, and increases its influence from year to year. Its present catalogue shows an aggregate of more than forty thousand volumes, and amongst these are many works of very great value. Besides these, there are a number of college, society and circulating libraries of great extent and value in the aggregate, and all together showing that we are a reading as well as a working and trading people. The city contains 152 houses of worship, divided among twenty different denominations. Thirty-six of these are Roman Catholic, 18 Presbyterian, 16 Baptist, 12 Episcopal, 12 Meth- odist, 12 German Evangelical Lutheran, 9 German Evangelical, 9 M. E. Church South, 4 Congregational, and others in smaller numbers. The public press of the city is another educating agency whose power is as efficient and wide-spread as it is incalculable. It is doubtful if any city in the world, of the same size, has more talent and enterprise devoted to public journalism. The leading dailies, ten in number, (6 English and 4 German,) are ably edited, and most of them display an amount of energy and enterprise in securing the latest news from all parts of the world, that should put to shame some of the cities of the older States and the Old World. The West is so vast in its interests and rapidly-developing resources, that the press is naturally inspired by these circumstances, and its newspapers keep pace with the swelling tide of its ever-increasing material wealth, population and power. Besides the dailies there are sixteen weeklies and nearly forty monthly publications issued, embracing nearly every department of religion, education, literature, sci- ence, art, and industry. Saint Louis being the centre of an immense empire of thought, action and industry, is constantly diffusing intelligence by its hundred vehicles, through a thousand channels to millions of people. lo ALBUM OF SAINT LOUIS. THE SAINT LOUIS BRIDGE. / I \ HIRTY years ago the idea of bridging the Mississippi at Saint Louis was regarded as a -*- species of insanitj', combined with treason against trade. Twenty years later the man who had spent years in clearing out the obstructions in this grand artery of inter-state commerce, first by removing wrecks and snags, then by breaking its blockade through the agency of iron-clad gun-boats, conceived the project of spanning the mighty flood, and thus opening a great highway to transcontinental trade and travel. The plan had its advocates and its oppo- nents. Many of the river men were opposed to it because they believed it would obstruct navigation, and thousands of narrow-minded people thought it would ruin Saint Louis by allowing freight trains to pass through the city without breaking bulk, and passenger trains without greater pause than might suffice for a breakfast This opposition gradually subsided in the presence of the universal demand for a transcontinental thoroughfare, and the public said, "Let us have a bridge if one can be built." Then arose the engineering question, and Captain James B. Eads became master of the situation. Here was an entirely new problem in the science of civil engineering. A great river that drained half a continent, that shifted its channel from year to year, and whose bottom seemed to be fathomless mud, must be bridged, not by pontoons, but by stone and steel, and in a manner to last for centuries. The resources of the engineer were equal to tlie task he had undertaken, and, setting about it with a courage and purpose that never dreamed of failure, the result stands before us to-day as the proudest achievement of engineering skill in the his- tory of the country, if not of the world. We look upon the structure now in its simple beauty and grandeur, and wonder why it was not erected long before. But the superficial observer will never comprehend the thousand obstacles and difficulties that stood in the way of success to this grand enterprise. It is enough for him to know that the solid rock, more than a hundred feet below the surface of the river, has grown up into magnificent piers of granite nearly two hundred feet high, and springing from these are arches of steel that promise to last through long centuries to come. Our sketch is taken from a new point of vi?w, and presents the bridge with the eastern portion in the fore-ground, and the city of Saint Louis in the perspective. This view presents a much larger field of interesting objects than any other, and any one familiar with the city will recognize all its prominent localities and most noted buildings. It may be stated in general terms that the bridge is 1627 feet in length, embracing three arches, and the eastern and western approaches increase this length to about one mile and one sixth. The total cost of the bridge has been about eight millions of dollars, while the cost of real estate on which to build the approaches, and other necessary expenditures, have added three or four millions to that amount. 22 CQ. i n -I iUfe-ii^*l . X c CC' -1 AL£ UM OF SAIAT LO UIS. i ^ THE FOUR COURTS. Conspicuous among the stately buildings of Saint Louis stands the Four Courts, occu- V^ pying the square formed by Clark avenue and Spruce street on the north and south, and Eleventh and Twelfth streets on the east and west. This place was formerly marked by the homestead of Henry Chouteau, extending in the form of a miniature peninsula into Chou- teau's Pond, a picturesque lakelet then, well remembered by many of the native Samt Louisans. The simple, happy home of Mr. Chouteau has been replaced by this elegant temple of justice, designed for court rooms and offices connected with the administration of criminal justice for both the City and State. The front of the building is quite imposing, and the Renaissance style of architecture is well adapted to give it a solid and commanding, as well as an ornate and attractive, appearance. The grand stone facade extends three hundred and thirty feet east and west, and rises three stories above the floor line. The end pavillions are seventy feet high and the recessed portions between these and the rotunda have an altitude of sixty feet. The cost of this large, substantial, and really handsome edifice amounts to :f88o,ooo, including $125,000 for the ground. The first floor is occupied as Police headquarters, furnishing accommodations for the Police Commissioners and the Chiel- ok Police with his little army of peacemakers, and the Police Court, where justice is dealt out to crowds of culprits in a most expeditious manner. The second story furnishes rooms for the Criminal Court and the Court of Criminal Correction, as well as various offices connected with the administration of justice. Why it should be called the Four Courts, when only three are held there, seems to be, to many "one of those things which no fellar can find out," as Lord Dundreary sapiently remarks- but its architectural resemblance to the Four Courts at Dublin, caused a learned jud