The steel structures were built by Laclede Gas in the 1920s and '40s and once held millions of pounds of natural gas in storage tanks that would rise and fall (depending on how full the tanks were) inside the skeletal steel sleeves.
Laclede Gas quit using the gasometers in 1995, and for the past decade they've sat there rusting with their storage tanks no longer visible.
Now the gasometers days are numbered.
As the Webster-Kirkwood Times reports this week, the gasometers -- and the land on which they sit -- have been purchased by a developer who plans to raze the towers by mid-November.
"After the tanks are down and the steel is hauled off, our intention right now is just to grade and seed the property so it looks nice," developer Michael Cozad told the paper. "We are actively trying to find tenants or users that would want a ground lease or have us build to suit on the property for them, or buy the property outright."A similar gasometer near Highway 40 and Kingshighway was demolished in 2007. Another gasometer, in north city, still stands today near Union Avenue and Natural Bridge.
