Odd STL #3

I hope you've enjoyed the photo-scavenger-hunt-of-sorts of Saint Louis - today I'll add a couple more and share answers to the previous posts of 'Odd STL':

Have you seen this man greeting drivers to a specific south city neighborhood?

And when was the last time you saw an 'Amoco' gas station?  Thousands of STL commuters see this world record holder everyday:

And now an explanation of the previous posts...

The 29-mph signs are located on the Monsanto Company's headquarters in Creve Coeur, Missouri!

The school bus from Odd STL #1 is parked on the corner of the roof of the City Museum in downtown Saint Louis!

The 'pile' of shoes from Odd STL #2 isn't just a pile - they form what must be the world's largest shoe made of shoes! (Brown Shoe Company headquarters in Clayton, Missouri)

"Eye" by Tony Tasset, 2007, located in Laumeier Sculpture Park in Sunset Hills, Missouri - a 105-acre open air art museum!

Odd STL #2

For the next installment of unique Saint Louis, let's get a close eye on things:


And remember to put your best foot forward:

I think this photo is good for the 'sole'...

Odd STL #1

Here is the first in a series of some of the unique, odd, and weird that Saint Louis has to offer.  First up is this sign in Saint Louis County - a thousand points for the first person to post the exact location of this sign! (Points may be redeemable at the blogger's discretion...)

And how about this one?

"The Girl in the Shadow Box"

During a March visit to a collection of Saint Louis historical and architectural treasures with my brother I happened upon a memorial with an interesting story.  The resting place of Herman Luyties is beautiful and haunting, providing an excellent subject for some photography.

This is the grave of Herman Luyties, owner of the first proprietary drug store in Saint Louis.  The Bellefontaine Cemetery website has a short biography and description of Luyties and his grave, but I will use the story found at Northstar Fine Art Photography Gallery (italics and bold added by me):

"In the late 1890s, when the great houses of Portland Place and Westmoreland Place were being built, Herman Luyties, owner of the first proprietary drug business in St. Louis, traveled to Italy on a pleasure trip. The Grand Tour was very popular during Victorian times. He fell in love with a beautiful Italian girl, the model of a sculptor from the Genoa area, Giulio Monteverde. Monteverde used the model to sculpt the angel above that is located in Monumental Cemetery in Milan Italy. This angel by Monteverde can be found all over the world.

Herman proposed, but she declined. What exactly he proposed, we can only imagine. After all, there was already a Mrs. Luyties at the time.

Luyties commissioned Monteverde to render an eight foot statue to capture her beauty, carved in marble but without the angel wings. Chances are Herman came directly home after placing the order, because the statue has details he wasn`t expecting. But we`re jumping the gun here. All this is hearsay, but juicy, isn't it?

When the statue was completed, she was shipped to St. Louis, to be placed in the foyer of the Luyties home at #39 Portland Place. Her several tons didn`t sit well in the foyer (not to mention the strain it must have put on the wife). In time Herman was forced to find a new location for her. He chose the family burial plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery (section 299, corner of Memorial Avenue and Hawthorn Avenue).


As one might imagine, this only partially solved the problem. I`m not one to tell tales, especially when I have only juicy bits, but the gossip between the lines is pretty hot for 1900. The cemetery workers are quick to point out her slightly rounded belly, and they love to speculate about her.

Soon pollution and the weather began to deteriorate the marble. This was the industrial revolution in the city of St. Louis, after all. The cemetery sits above Broadway, and overlooks Hall Street. Herman had her enclosed in a granite shadow box with a glass face. (By the way, I don`t believe Mr. Luyties would have called her Bessie. That name is said to have originated with the cemetery workers, way back around the time she arrived in Bellefontaine.)

"In the 1840's, Herman Luyties, MD, opened a small homeopathic practice in downtown St. Louis. Soon after, doctors moving west began pressing him for homeopathic kits and supplies since he was the first local resource west of the Mississippi River. As the demand increased, he moved his office to the back and in 1853 officially opened a small homeopathic pharmacy.

When the Homeopathic Medical College of Missouri was established in St. Louis in 1857, Luyties Pharmacal Company became the primary resource for homeopathy across the country. Dr. Luyties worked diligently on formulating combination tablets for specific ailments which would make it easier for his patients to care for their own self-treatable conditions, especially for patients traveling or living too far out for him to reach them quickly."http://www.1800homeopathy.com/company.shtml

The family plot is a big one, a corner lot with a view and space for sixteen or more. Herman is there alone. He died in 1921 at age 50, and is buried at Bessie`s feet. "Bessie, the girl in the shadow box" as she is known to the cemetery attendants, maintains the eternal vigil. The wife and the rest of the family have a cosy little spot of their own, across the road and down the block a ways. http://www.angelicimages.com/BessieStory.html"


This is exactly why I love local history - you never know what kind of story you will discover!

Art in the Industrial Park

The southeastern quarter of my suburban Saint Louis hometown, Maryland Heights, is the home of a large business and industrial park known as 'Westport.'  The Westport Industrial Park is made of a mix of office buildings, distribution warehouses, manufacturing centers, and a few homes.

Last week I searched through the Westport Industrial Park for interesting and unique details - what I found may not be mind-blowing or the most beautiful works of art you have ever seen (I guarantee these are not even the best examples of mid-century architecture and ornamentation), but I do hope they help you appreciate the buildings around us that are too young to be classic and too old to be trendy.

Emerson Climate Technologies building.

At the intersection of Page Boulevard & Schuetz Road.

"GAIU" - Graphic Arts International Union (currently the Graphic Communications International Union).

The two photos above are from the Graphic Arts Banquet & Conference Center.

The next photo reveals a new structure drawing from the inspiration of the surrounding business park:

Remember to take a moment to admire the built environment - you never know what you may find in the details!

Fort Belle Fontaine

Ancient ruins lie along the bank of the Missouri River in north Saint Louis County...

...but only if you consider the Depression Era ancient history (I hope you do not!).  These 'ruins' were once part of a summer retreat constructed in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration - a government program initiated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help Americans get back to work by constructing large numbers of public works projects.  The photo above and the following photos are of the old showers and bath houses of Fort Belle Fontaine Park:

I thoroughly enjoyed this little discovery of mine because I am fascinated by how much these abandoned buildings look like ancient ruins one would find in the British Isles!

The history of this site owes a lot to FDR and the WPA, but its story begins long before the Great Depression.  Established as a French fur trading post in the late 1700s and named "Cantonment Belle Fontaine," it was converted into the first American military post west of the Mississippi River in the 1805.  Explorers Zebulon Pike (Pike's Peak, Colorado) and Lewis & Clark stopped here for supplies and rest on their journeys west - in the case of Lewis & Clark, this was the location of their camp on the last night of their famous Corps of Discovery expedition.  In 1826, United States military operations were moved to Jefferson Barracks (located in south Saint Louis County on the Mississippi River) and Fort Belle Fontaine was abandoned - today nothing remains of the old fort.  Interest was renewed in the area by a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project in the 1930s that turned the area into a summer retreat. All that remains are the ruins of the limestone structures you see in the photographs that were a very popular summer destitnation in the 1930s and 1940s.

Here we see a gazebo in a state of decay and disrepair, another one of the many pieces of the WPA project.

But the most impressive feature of Fort Belle Fontaine Park is the Grand Staircase:

The Grand Staircase leads visitors from the top of the Missouri River bluffs to the river's edge, where park patrons once enjoyed swimming in the cool river water.

Base of a lamp post at the bottom of the Grand Staircase.

The lowest terrace of the staircase leading to the Missouri River.

The following two photos reveal more of the faded grandeur of the park:

A basin that once housed a fountain on one of the terraces of the Grand Staircase.

Another one of the terrace basins on the Grand Staircase.

View from the top of the Grand Staircase.

"Fort Belle Fontaine - 1805-1826"

Happy Anniversary to My Sweetheart!

"Three years? YES!"