Tag Archives: Landmarks Association of St. Louis

Missouri Park and Lucas Place

The small park behind the St. Louis Pub­lic Library is called Lucas Park in hon­or of the fam­i­ly that once owned the land.  In about 1810 Judge J.B.C. Lucas pur­chased a large par­cel of land that includes today’s Lucas Park.

In 1850 the Lucas fam­i­ly devel­oped a new res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood on their land, which they not sur­pris­ing­ly named Lucas Place. From its con­cep­tion this neigh­bor­hood was intend­ed to be very dif­fer­ent with wide build­ing set­backs and deed restric­tions ban­ning com­mer­cial activ­i­ties. The new street Lucas Place was also off­set 50-feet from the city street grid.

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Mis­souri Park and Lucas Place, from “Pic­to­r­i­al St. Louis”, 1875

A defin­ing fea­ture of Lucas Place was a new green space called Mis­souri Park, which the Lucas fam­i­ly had deed­ed to the city in 1854. Mis­souri Park was bound­ed by 13th, Olive, 14th and St. Charles streets. The park stretched across Lucas Place pre­vent­ing through traf­fic into the neigh­bor­hood and was a key ele­ment in defin­ing the neigh­bor­hood as “a place apart”. By 1875 Mis­souri Park boast­ed, “an iron foun­tain, 116 bench­es, 368 shade trees, 277 shrubs, and was sur­round­ed by a wood­en pick­et fence.”  It was also the first park in St. Louis to have gas light­ing along its pathways.

As com­mer­cial devel­op­ment began to encroach on Lucas Place in the ear­ly 1880s, Mis­souri Park was select­ed as the site for St. Louis’ grand­est build­ing of the peri­od, the Music and Expo­si­tion Hall. Com­plet­ed in 1884, this mas­sive build­ing was St. Louis’ first con­ven­tion cen­ter and encom­passed the entire 4‑acre foot­print of the old Mis­souri Park.  Mea­sur­ing 146,000 square feet the Exhi­bi­tion Hall host­ed the 1888 and 1904 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tions and the 1896 Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion. The Music Hall sat 4,000 and was the first per­ma­nent home to the Saint Louis Symphony.

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Music and Expo­si­tion Hall, cir­ca 1890

The Music and Expo­si­tion Hall was demol­ished in 1907 hav­ing been replaced by a larg­er and new­er St. Louis Col­i­se­um. The site was then select­ed for the new St. Louis Pub­lic Library, built with a $1 mil­lion gift from Andrew Carnegie. Because the Library was designed to use only two-thirds of the old expo­si­tion site the north­ern part of the old Mis­souri Park was restored to green space and renamed Lucas Park. At the same time Locust Street was cut through the space between the new Library and the restored park. When the street was cut through it result­ed in the unusu­al curve at 13 and Locust streets, which can still be seen today.  By 1918 Lucas Park had been plant­ed with “forty-five thou­sands shrubs and flower plants…set out in artis­ti­cal­ly designed beds” and was one of the finest parks in St. Louis.  After 1950, all the old res­i­den­tial build­ings in the vicin­i­ty of Lucas Park had van­ished (except for the Camp­bell House) as down­town was trans­form­ing into an exclu­sive­ly com­mer­cial district.

Like this post? Look for the new exhib­it Lucas Place: The Lost Neigh­bor­hood of St. Louis’ Gold­en Age open­ing March 22 at the Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion of St. Louis. Exhib­it made pos­si­ble through a grant from the Mis­souri Human­i­ties Coun­cil.

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Lucas Park and the St. Louis Pub­lic Library, from a cir­ca 1920 postcard.

Locust Street Architectural Walking Tour

Two boys work­ing at the Inland Type Foundry at 12th (now Tuck­er) and Locust. Pho­to cour­tesy of the Library of Congress.

Have you ever tak­en a close look at some of the build­ings as you’ve cruised down Locust Street? We have some spec­tac­u­lar hid­den trea­sures you’ve prob­a­bly nev­er noticed, and we’re going to host a walk­ing tour next month to give you the inside scoop on some of them. And, in keep­ing with Camp­bell hos­pi­tal­i­ty, we’ll end the tour with the usu­al refresh­ments and camaraderie.

Locust Street Archi­tec­tur­al Walk­ing Tour, Sat­ur­day Octo­ber 27, 1–3 PM

Join Camp­bell House Muse­um’s Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn for a walk­ing tour of notable build­ings in the Down­town West sec­tion of Locust Street. The group will begin at Camp­bell House (1508 Locust Street), and see the archi­tec­tur­al high­lights on a 6‑block walk. The group will go inside the Leather Trades Artists Lofts and we will receive a behind-the-scenes peek at the staff-only areas of the his­toric Schlafly Tap Room (2100 Locust Street), where the tour will end. One deli­cious Schlafly beer is includ­ed in your tick­et price. The tour begins at 1 PM in the Camp­bell House Muse­um garden.

Tour is lim­it­ed to 25 guests to accom­mo­date some tight spaces at the Tap Room, so make your reser­va­tion early!

Tick­ets are $30, or $25 for Camp­bell House Muse­um and Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion mem­bers. Call Camp­bell House at 314/421‑0325 to make your reservation.

Upcom­ing

  • Jan­u­ary 21, 2013: Fundrais­er to repub­lish Vir­ginia Camp­bel­l’s cook­book at Riv­er City Casi­no. Chef John John­son is going to cook a mul­ti-course meal with recipes from Vir­gini­a’s cookbook. 
  • March 2013:  Restora­tion tour of Camp­bell House. We’ll show you the research and work involved in the exten­sive 5‑year restora­tion. You’ll get to see fas­ci­nat­ing pic­tures of the work in progress, sam­ples of mate­ri­als used (includ­ing car­pet and wall­pa­per), and a vis­it to the attic, offices and sprawl­ing basement.

Please check the blog, Face­book and our Twit­ter feed for the offi­cial announce­ments with final­ized dates and times on both of these events. Have a great (short!) week, everyone!

Monday Update (a day late) » 7.24.12

It’s hot­ter than blazes in St. Louis, but the heat has­n’t slowed us down a bit at Camp­bell House! (Except for maybe our blog­ging schedule.)

Hel­looooooo Kevin! The west wall will not be paint­ed, but the brick will receive a clear weath­er­proof coating.

Exte­ri­or Ren­o­va­tion Begins
Con­trac­tors have begun to prep the house for the big paint job. Kevin has been patient­ly tuck­point­ing some of the high­est points of the house (up to 60 feet in some areas!) with a lift for over a week now, and when he’s done, the crew will come in to start paint­ing. The shut­ters have already been removed, and the painters have begun repair­ing and repaint­ing them in the shop.

Upcom­ing Tours
We got togeth­er with our friends down the street at Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion of St. Louis a few weeks ago to plot a few events for the fall. We are ten­ta­tive­ly plan­ning an out­door movie night for Sep­tem­ber, a Locust Street archi­tec­tur­al walk­ing tour (that ends at the Schlafly Tap Room for drinks and cama­raderie), and a Camp­bell House restora­tion tour where you can see the inner work­ings of our place in either Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary.  As soon as we final­ize every­thing, we will post all of the details for you. Stay tuned.

The new and improved cook’s bedroom.

New Cook’s Bedroom
Since the Camp­bells did not pho­to­graph many of the rooms in the ser­vants’ wing of the house  (includ­ing the kitchen and ser­vants’ liv­ing quar­ters),  we were able to inter­pret these rooms the best we could, based on the orig­i­nal floor­plan of the house. The house­keep­er’s bed­room has always been staged as a bed­room, but the cook’s bed­room — which had pre­vi­ous­ly housed an exhib­it on the ser­vants — has now been pre­sent­ed as a bed­room. Thanks to a bequest from one of our mem­bers, we received a beau­ti­ful set of fur­ni­ture of the style, peri­od and qual­i­ty that would have been in a ser­van­t’s bed­room in a house like this. Come down to the Muse­um to see it in person.

Stu­dents try­ing to inter­pret Hugh Camp­bel­l’s hand­writ­ing in a let­ter to his wife, Mary. (This Hugh is Robert’s broth­er, not his son.)

Black Rep Sum­mer Camp
We had the plea­sure of wel­com­ing about 20 stu­dents from The Black Rep Sum­mer Camp last week for our doc­u­ment work­shop. After tak­ing a brief tour of the first floor to hear the Camp­bell sto­ry, they came up to the third floor Aviary to play his­to­ry detec­tive. We gave them copies of Camp­bell doc­u­ments to inter­pret and to share their find­ings with the rest of the group. These were some of the most enthu­si­as­tic kids we’ve had come through the house, and we look for­ward to see­ing them again! Do you need a spe­cial edu­ca­tion­al activ­i­ty or work­shop for your group of chil­dren or adults? Give us a call! We’re hap­py to design a half- or full day of fun and learn­ing. Con­tact Andy or Shel­ley at 314/421‑0325 to let us start plan­ning your day at Camp­bell House!

Our Interns
Did you meet intern Han­nah? Read all about her here!

Robert’s Irish Break­fast Tea

Camp­bell House Tea
Look­ing for a small gift for the per­son who has every­thing? Robert has you cov­ered. Come by to pick up a 1‑oz pack­age of Robert’s Irish Break­fast tea, a blend we buy from our tea-lov­ing neigh­bors at the Lon­don Tea Room. A favorite with cof­fee drinkers, it’s strong and bold, just like our Robert. We’re sell­ing it for $5 a pack­age, and that includes a coupon for a free cup of tea or cof­fee at the Lon­don Tea Room. It’s avail­able now in the Muse­um Store and at the front door of the Muse­um. Pick up a pack­age to get a taste of Camp­bell House!

Urban Explor­ing: Trin­i­ty Luther­an Church
Today we took a field trip to Soulard to vis­it Trin­i­ty Luther­an Church. Docent Coor­di­na­tor Den­nis has been a mem­ber of this his­toric church all his life, and he invit­ed Camp­bell House staff, interns and docents out to get a behind-the-scenes look at every­thing in the church, includ­ing the bell tow­er. As a teas­er, here’s a shot of one of the gor­geous art glass win­dows in a space behind the choir loft. A full blog post with the church’s his­to­ry and all of the images will fol­low lat­er this week.

One of Trin­i­ty Luther­an’s art glass win­dows in a non-pub­lic area behind the choir loft.

Stay cool this week, and check back to meet Syd­ney — one of our won­der­ful interns — and the full pho­to essay of our vis­it to Trin­i­ty Lutheran!

Monday Update » 6.11.12

Wel­come back to Mon­day, every­one! We hope you’ve been enjoy­ing your sum­mer so far. As usu­al, we’ve been busy here and we have some fun things to report to you:

Facelift for Camp­bell House
Actu­al­ly, more like a coat of paint. 2012 marks the 10-year anniver­sary of the com­ple­tion of the exte­ri­or ren­o­va­tion of the house, and we’re due for anoth­er paint job. For­tu­nate­ly, we’ve secured a gen­er­ous grant from the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for the funds to have the brick, win­dows and cor­nices repaint­ed. Since the house is so big and tall, this is going to be an excit­ing process because the painters will have to use a series of lifts to reach the high­est points of the house. Work will like­ly begin this sum­mer after we com­plete spot tuck­point­ing, and we’ll be sure to share pic­tures as the work pro­gress­es. Three cheers for the Robert J. Tru­laske, Jr. Fam­i­ly Foun­da­tion for help­ing us keep the Camp­bells’ home in tip-top shape!

We ♥ Our Interns
Camp­bell House has a full com­ple­ment of six interns this sum­mer. Though most of them are from St. Louis, they rep­re­sent uni­ver­si­ties from all over the coun­try, (Vas­sar, Wart­burg Col­lege and Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty) and a vari­ety of dis­ci­plines includ­ing art his­to­ry, chem­istry (real­ly) and Amer­i­can cul­ture stud­ies. They’ll get the full muse­um expe­ri­ence this sum­mer by giv­ing tours, con­duct­ing research, inven­to­ry­ing the Camp­bell col­lec­tion as well as all of the oth­er day-to-day stuff that needs to get done (i.e. water­ing the gar­den, book­ing tours, work­ing on mem­ber­ship renewals, etc). Check back in with us as we post intern pro­files to the blog. These dynam­ic — and wicked­ly smart — stu­dents breathe new life into this house, and we’re for­tu­nate to have their fresh per­spec­tive. While they’re learn­ing the muse­um biz, we get new insight and ideas for mak­ing this old house cur­rent and rel­e­vant to a young demo­graph­ic. Are you inter­est­ed in join­ing us for an intern­ship, too? Email Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy Hahn at andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org.

Inte­ri­or of Fort Laramie by Alfred Jacob Miller
Water­col­or, 1858–1860

Retrac­ing Robert’s Route
This week, Intre­pid Researcher Tom™  and our illus­tri­ous Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Andy are tak­ing a trip out to the wild west to vis­it Robert’s old stomp­ing grounds. Begin­ning at Fort Laramie, the pair will meet Robert’s great-nephew Alan (who is com­ing all the way from North­ern Ire­land) to see the annu­al Ren­dezvous that reen­acts the year­ly event where trap­pers would meet with mer­chants to trade furs for goods. Fort Laramie is sig­nif­i­cant because Robert found­ed Fort William, which was Fort Laramie’s pre­cur­sor. This year’s event will com­mem­o­rate artist Alfred Jacob Miller’s 1837 trip to the ren­dezvous. Miller pro­duced some of the most famous images of the Ore­gon Trail and Fort Laramie, includ­ing the one on the right. After the ren­dezvous, the trio will vis­it Muse­um of the Moun­tain Man, Pier­re’s Hole (the site of the famous bat­tle in which Robert and pal Bill Sub­lette played a major role), and final­ly — if they have time — a trip to Fort Bridger. We’ll be sure to post pic­tures after the trav­el­ers return.

A pic­ture from the process: the entire key­board was removed from the body of the piano.

Music to Our Ears
In what proved to be a five-month project, the Camp­bells’ piano is DONE! JoAnn Kaplan of Kap­stan Piano Ser­vices worked tire­less­ly to clean, fix and/or cus­tom-fab­ri­cate new parts, and final­ly tune the old Schomack­er. We did­n’t do all that work for noth­ing — we’ll start host­ing par­lor con­certs lat­er this year. Check back for details.

Tours on Tap
Did you miss our wild­ly suc­cess­ful Lucas Place/Tap Room walk­ing tour last fall? Have no fear — we’ll offer it again and then some. This week we’re meet­ing with our friends at Land­marks Asso­ci­a­tion of St. Louis to put togeth­er some fun and infor­ma­tive tours. As soon as we work out the details we ‘ll get a sched­ule of events post­ed. Do you have an idea for a build­ing, neigh­bor­hood or spe­cial tour of Camp­bell House? Let us know! Send your bright idea to shelley.satke [at] gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do.

Detail of the reuphol­stered piano bench. That’s silk vel­vet and yes, it feels as good as it looks.

Facelift 2.0: Bidet and Piano Stool
The house is get­ting repaint­ed, and two pieces of fur­ni­ture have been reuphol­stered, too. The fab­ric on Vir­gini­a’s bidet cov­er had dete­ri­o­rat­ed to noth­ing more than threads, and the piano stool was­n’t in much bet­ter shape. Board mem­ber and inte­ri­or design­er Tim Rohan gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed new fab­ric and had the tops of both pieces of fur­ni­ture reuphol­stered over the exist­ing fab­rics so we would not lose the orig­i­nal mate­r­i­al (what was left of it, anyway).

New Geo­cache
Are you into urban trea­sure hunt­ing? We have a new geo­cache in our garden.…dig up your GPS or down­load a geo­cache app to find it, and add your name to the list!

Board Pres­i­dent Fritz Clif­ford with St. Louis Bal­let dancers.

We’re the Daaaahncers
Last week we wel­comed a crew of St. Louis Bal­let dancers who per­formed at our Mag­i­cal Spring Thing in April. They got the VIP tour with Andy and Board Pres­i­dent Fritz lead­ing the way.  Do you have a spe­cial group that would like to have a spe­cial behind-the-scenes expe­ri­ence at Camp­bell House? Con­tact Andy (andy [at] campbellhousemuseum.org) or Shel­ley (shelley.satke [at] gmail.com) and we are more than hap­py to accom­mo­date you!

Bye, Bob
Bob’s going away.…for now. The beloved gar­den gnome that was left on our front steps as a prank will be vaca­tion­ing back at the DeMe­nil Man­sion until we launch a secret expe­di­tion to bring him home.  <super sadface>

.…and that’s all the news that’s fit to print for now. Have a spec­tac­u­lar week!