Editor's Note: This is an excerpt from Jim Merkel's book Walking South City: A Journey through Historic St. Louis Neighborhoods. You can preorder it now at reedypress.com.
This book began with an eight-mile walk that my publisher, Josh Stevens, took with his son in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic. The trek from their house in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood to the Gateway Arch in the summer of 2020 gave them a taste of neighborhoods like The Hill, Lafayette Square, LaSalle and downtown. It confirmed why they love St. Louis.
On a different day, they walked about the same distance to Kirkwood, but it wasn't the same. They discovered the county had fewer sidewalks, heavier traffic and was generally more difficult to navigate on foot than the city.
The experience inspired Josh to propose an idea to me in early 2021. With CDC guidelines still recommending physical distancing, we decided to meet on a heated patio in Webster Groves' Old Orchard. The heaters were on full blast, but we still felt a chill. I warmed up when I heard his idea about writing a book on the neighborhoods of south St. Louis. The proposal was too good to ignore and led to the volume you're reading, which recounts my 45-cumulative-mile stroll through south St. Louis, known more commonly these days as south city.
In our discussions about the concept, Josh and I decided we wanted the book to provide a living perspective. I planned to include conversations with people I encountered along the walks, from leaders of the community to people walking their dogs. I would incorporate neighborhood history, but my biggest focus would be what I observed.
My ties to south city run deep: My great-great grandfather settled there in 1858, I've lived in the Bevo Mill neighborhood with my wife, Lorraine, for more than 30 years, and I reported on this part of town for the old South Side Journal from 2001 to 2009.
The walking route herein touches all of south city's neighborhoods. The result was a winding path that stays south of Highway 40.
During the walks, I kept my eyes open for details, noting everything from a run-down house to a discarded surgical mask. I looked for the oddities, serious and humorous.
By the time I sat down to write, I had collected hundreds of impressions about south city. Hopefully, the final product offers an authentic view of an authentic place.
A Ride on Route 66
I started my walk along Chippewa Street just west of Gravois. I spotted an abandoned shopping cart from Aldi in an empty used-car lot. That sight did not surprise me, since abandoned items, including assorted trash, appear all over this stretch of Chippewa. Chippewa is one of several east-west streets in south city that extends from near the Mississippi River all the way to the city's western boundary. As part of Route 66, Chippewa once served as the main pathway for travelers headed from Chicago to Los Angeles.
I encountered the lonely shopping cart near the railroad viaduct, a familiar site for employees who worked at the South Side Journal building. During my tenure, I would sometimes walk to the highest point of the viaduct and look back at the building. Inside, we produced news stories and features about the surrounding neighborhoods and beyond.
From 1994 to 2009, I sat in a chair at the same spot in the same cubicle in the newsroom. The company paid just enough for us to drive 10-year-old cars. Nonetheless, we had a sense of one-for-all, all-for-one and believed our tasks were important.
Some of my coworkers were unusual, like one guy who was constantly angry. One morning, he arrived late for a discussion about a front-page article in that morning's Post-Dispatch. He normally would have covered the same story, but the P-D reporter had beaten him to the punch. When he demanded to see the story in his usual loud voice, I picked up the P-D edition with the story and shoved it close to his face. "Here it is," I said.
Pow!
I felt the impact on the left side of my face. The boss fired him on the spot. He also put a note in my file saying I had baited the belligerent reporter. The next week, my coworkers feted me with fried chicken at Hodak's. Something in me wishes it hadn't happened. If he reads this, I wish him well.
I appreciated my coworkers in general because we were proud of covering the little things, like neighborhood meetings in south city and city-council meetings at small municipalities in south county. No other newspapers put the closing of a Catholic grade school at the top of page one. I talked to local leaders that I never would have met otherwise. It was the best 15 years of my career.
I turned away from the building I remembered so well and walked over the tracks that are part of the Union Pacific Railroad's line through south city.
At Morgan Ford Road, I stopped for the day.
Beer, Boxing and Farmers at a Market
Around 75 years ago, the Soulard neighborhood looked so decrepit that supposedly wise city planners put it on a list for demolition, but thankfully the area around the Anheuser-Busch brewery and the Soulard Farmers Market survived those attempts at destruction. Eventually, the hard work of Soulard's community resurrected the neighborhood. These days, Soulard's bars, restaurants and farmers market, along with its Mardi Gras parade, attract folks from everywhere. On September 26, 2020, it drew me in for a walk.
After church, I rushed home and changed out of my Sunday best into jeans, a T-shirt and shoes. I planned to walk through Soulard and Lafayette Square. Just after noon, I stood at Cherokee Street and South Broadway, ready to set off north on Broadway.
The area I passed through has a long history. In 1794, a Frenchman named Antoine Soulard came to St. Louis as the new surveyor-general of Upper Louisiana and fell in love with a woman named Julia Cerre. When they married the next year, Julia's father gave the couple a tract south of the village of St. Louis, the land now known as Soulard.
The area is also known as a home to many immigrants, starting with the Germans in the 1830s. When political strife in Germany and the modern-day Czech Republic forced people to flee the countries in 1848, many Germans and Bohemians settled in Soulard. Italians, Serbians, Syrians, Hungarians and Croatians also found refuge in the area, making homes in the two-and-three story brick houses, some of the earliest housing in St. Louis that reflects a distinct style. Soulard's houses are jammed closely together next to sidewalks and often have mansard roofs or sideways gable roofs with small dormers on top. One unusual structure is the "half" house, where roofs descend sharply in one direction, so rain can run off quickly. The neighborhood architecture possesses a grace that makes visitors want to return again and again.
On my way to the heart of Soulard, I walked along Lyon Park and noticed a statue of Captain Nathaniel Lyon on his horse. Lyon, the commander of the St. Louis Arsenal at the start of the Civil War, achieved glory by forcing the surrender of a state militia group thought to be plotting a Confederate attack on Camp Jackson (located on the present-day campus of Saint Louis University).
That surrender, made possible by the infusion of thousands of German volunteers, ended any possibility that St. Louis, and with it Missouri, would fight for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Lyon was promoted to brigadier general for his achievement, and in 1869, Congress donated 10 acres of the arsenal for a park named in memory of Lyon. A monument to him in the form of an obelisk was installed five years later in the park, and a statue of Lyon, unveiled in 1929 in Camp Jackson Plaza, moved to the park in 1960.
Nathaniel Lyon had received help in his campaign from many St. Louis Germans, a group that also played a big part in the nearby Anheuser-Busch Brewery, where brewmasters make enough beer to fill Lake Superior. Outside of the Gateway Arch and Busch Stadium, the brewery may attract more tourists than any other building in St. Louis, though nothing beats the night of April 6, 1933, when a crowd of 25,000 celebrated the end of Prohibition. The crowd cheered the dozens of trucks filled with Budweiser as they left the plant and delivered to the masses. Despite being owned by international interests as of 2008, the brewery continues to churn out a wide variety of products that A-B markets with gusto.
After admiring St. Louis's beer palace, I continued north and passed the point where South Broadway turns into Seventh Boulevard. Soon after, I reached the South Broadway Athletic Club at Shenandoah Avenue, a hotbed of activity since it started as a debate club on December 5, 1899. Over time, it expanded to include boxing and wrestling matches, not to mention gentler events like concerts, dances, softball, corkball and washers. A few years ago, the club fell on hard times, but a new group of members brought it back to life and finally allowed women to join.
Mike Button, club president from 1987 to 1996, told me that camaraderie has always helped keep the club going. To Button, the club has always provided a social outlet for the neighborhood. He was a member long before he became president and practically raised his kids there. He's quick to point out that the club has produced boxers of national stature, like Mike Buha, who fought for the heavyweight championship of the world, or Billy Stephan, who boxed in Madison Square Garden. Pros seen on the old Wrestling at the Chase also practiced at the club, and you can still catch the occasional match there.
Heading further north on Seventh, I eventually hit Russell Boulevard. To the west are popular local eating and drinking establishments like Hammerstone's, Tucker's Place and John D. McGurk's Irish Pub and Garden. Be aware: The "Irish" isn't in McGurk's name just to get more customers on St. Patrick's Day. After an hour at this bar and grill, you'll expect to exit onto a street in Dublin. McGurk's began in 1978, when two local lawyers bought a shuttered bar and broasted chicken place at 12th Street and Russell Boulevard. The owners called their place an Irish pub and played tapes of Irish music until they were told that to be authentic, they had to bring in Irish bands to play live music.
The owners went all-in on the advice and hired groups from Ireland to perform. These days, half of the bands come from Ireland, and the other half include Irish ex-pats who live in St. Louis. No matter who is playing, people flock to McGurk's for the best in Irish food, drink and merriment.
My route misses not only Soulard's famous night spots but also its distinctive and gorgeous homes. Jay Gibbs, a longtime neighborhood resident, fills me in over coffee at the Soulard Coffee Garden on Geyer Avenue. Gibbs said German immigrants built many of the neighborhood's brick homes from about 1845 to 1900. The neighborhood declined in the first half of the 20th century, but urban pioneers started bringing the place back around the early 1970s, restoring some of the earliest houses in St. Louis. Similar to housing in early American cities like Baltimore, dwellings in Soulard appear jammed together. The land was expensive, so builders made the lots narrow. They started building in the north part of the neighborhood around the Soulard Market and made their way south. About 5,000 souls live in Soulard today, but 30,000 to 60,000 people lived in the same space in the 19th century, when crowded conditions reigned.
In recent years, you'll only find people massing in Soulard at its annual Mardi Gras parade. Many thousands come to the event, which starts at Busch Stadium, heads generally south on Seventh Street, and ends at the brewery.
The parade and subsequent street party started as a cooperative effort of five bars. With all the crowds, Mardi Gras is one time for bars and restaurants to get ahead. The event appeals to a younger set of people but includes family features like the Cajun cookout and the Purina Pet Parade.
When I walked away from the parade route and headed west on Lafayette, I noticed how quiet Soulard Market was. It wasn't a Saturday, when throngs of people seek bargains on kale, fresh fish, baked bread and various other items. Hundreds buy or sell at the Soulard Farmers Market. As I see it, the market is one of the most lively and colorful places around.
My experience on a different day affirmed this observation. Inside the market on the weekend, you'll find a sea of humanity and noise, not to mention fruits, vegetables, meats and clothing. When I visited, apples, oranges and other delights stood out, but so did other vendors like Herman Handmade Soaps and Jennifer's Meat & Fish. At Soulard Market, you can also find gourmet mushrooms, Bloody Marys and roasted corn.
But not my books.
A few summers back, I spent two or three months in a stall selling my books. Before the city would consider me, I paid $200 for a business license and $175 more for insurance and membership in the market association in addition to a weekly fee of $40 ($30 outside of the summer). To get the best spot available, I arrived as early as 6 a.m. and set up my wares. Then I watched crowds walk past me to stalls with food and plants. I quit by mid-July. A guy next to me who fried Lilliputian doughnuts told me he'd put himself through college with his Saturday yields. I was clearly in the wrong industry.
Leaving the market behind, I continued west on Lafayette Avenue to the bridge that marked the end of my two-mile walk. I would see more before the end of the day but needed some water first to deal with the heat and humidity. Nothing can oppress the spirit or spoil plans like summer days in St. Louis, whether you live on the south or any other side.
Lafayette Square: Life in a Museum
As I walked west on Lafayette Avenue from the I-55 bridge on September 26, I encountered a busy Tucker Boulevard. I crossed the street and saw to my right a huge condo building that once housed the old City Hospital. To my left stood an 80-foot-tall, red sculpture that resembles enormous beams gathered together. Called Treemonisha, the work by artist John Henry pays tribute to the eponymous opera composed by Scott Joplin.
Before long, I reached the edge of the stunningly restored Lafayette Square, which came into existence in 1836 when the city decided to sell off the St. Louis Common (land jointly reserved in the previous century for public pastureland and related purposes). The city's deep pockets funded the design and construction of resplendent mansions that face Lafayette Park, named for the French general the Marquis de Lafayette, who fought with the Americans in the Revolutionary War.
The dwellings that surrounded the park originally housed the richest of the rich. However, toward the end of the 19th century, the area started to deteriorate as the affluent moved west. Then, in 1896, a massive tornado made a direct hit on the neighborhood and dealt what seemed like a death blow. For decades, Lafayette Square remained rundown.
Fortunately for all of us, urban pioneers helped bring the area back to life. The turnaround started in 1949, when preservationist John Albury Bryan bought a home on 21 Benton Place and restored it. Almost every home except Bryan's was in disrepair, but he spoke of the neighborhood's potential and invited rehabbers to join the restoration effort. Under the circumstances, Bryan may have seemed daft, but the results speak for themselves. Lafayette Square continues to win the recognition of local and national experts for historical significance and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Second Empire–style Victorian townhouses in Lafayette are easily recognizable by their windows, which often curve at the top; their mansard roofs; and their third floors. Made of red brick and stone, Romanesque revival dwellings fill the square, where you'll also find eclectic paint jobs as well as ornate wrought iron fences surrounding compact front yards.
The neighborhood boasts past residents like Horace E. Bixby, a riverboat pilot who befriended Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). When the Civil War started, Bixby was named chief pilot of the Union Gunboat Fleet on the Mississippi and later inspired a character in Twain's book Life on the Mississippi.
A few doors down lived one of the neighborhood's restoration heroes. Ruth Kamphoefner lost her husband in 1964 and supported her five kids with Social Security checks and a part-time job as an art teacher. To save money, she bought a roach-infested shell on Mississippi Avenue and rehabbed it. Kamphoefner went on to restore homes throughout the neighborhood with unparalleled enthusiasm and became a leader in the renewal effort. She told her family's story in her self-published book Lafayette Comes Back.
Residents of Kamphoefner's block of Mississippi are near the entrance to Lafayette Park, inside which the statues of two early American politicians stand. One is of U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who represented Missouri for three decades after it became a state in 1821 and famously claimed that a transcontinental railroad from St. Louis to San Francisco would lead to a Pacific empire. The statue faces west and depicts Benton wearing explorer's boots and the toga of a Roman senator. The other statue — one of just six bronze castings made by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1792 — depicts George Washington holding a bundle of rods upright. The City of St. Louis website describes the rendering as "the only likeness for which Washington ever posed."
Close by, the scenery could be described as dreamy. Weeping willows enshroud a dreamy grotto where an iron bridge crosses a lake. Formed in 2001, the Lafayette Park Conservancy works to preserve the park's historical character while encouraging use and hosting band performances, a garden tour and art fair, a holiday market, and the annual Jim King Holiday Pet Parade. Bring your dogs or, if you're brave, your cats.
After wandering the park, I returned to Mississippi Avenue and made my way to a busy area along Park Avenue. Joggers ran and parents pushed strollers by active storefronts filled with a slew of businesses — a salon, realty office, art gallery, wine shop, bar and a cafe, where locals chatted inside and out over lattes.
When I resumed my walk, I kept north on Mississippi toward Chouteau Avenue, passing Second-Empire Victorian townhouses and more old factory buildings, many converted to lofts or condos. At Chouteau, I found apartments and condos under construction. A new and different area awaited, and I'd soon explore it.
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