All Entries in the "Time Capsule" Category
Time Capsule: remembering Loretto Academy
Among my collection of old postcards and other memorabilia related to North County’s history, perhaps nothing has intrigued me more than this image. The first time I saw it, I thought it was some grand European building….maybe a French government center or an English university. But no, what this postcard depicts is actually Loretto Academy, a stately Catholic girls school built in 1880 in the heart of old Florissant.
For 39 years, Loretto Academy stood near the historic St. Ferdinand Shrine, housing around 50 girls between the ages of five and 15. But on January 4, 1919 – exactly 93 years ago today – disaster struck.
In the early hours of a frigid morning, fire broke out in the building, forcing 75 Loretto nuns and dozens of students to flee in the bitter cold. At the time, the still-rural town of Florissant didn’t have a professional fire department, so all the nuns could do is ring the church bell and pray that help would arrive. Numerous volunteers showed up, and fire engines were even dispatched from St. Louis and University City, but it was too late. Loretto Academy was lost in the flames.
Still, some good did result from this tragedy. Two months later, local citizens came together and organized the Florissant Valley Volunteer Fire Department, which later became the Florissant Valley Fire Protection District, whose services we still enjoy today. In 1966, when another fire broke out on the shrine grounds, this time threatening the church itself, Florissant was better prepared.
Although Loretto Academy could not be saved decades before, firefighters did manage to preserve St. Ferdinand, which was heavily damaged but salvageable and ultimately restored. To this day, it remains the oldest American Catholic Church west of the Mississippi, pre-dating St. Louis’ “Old Cathedral” by 14 years.
Many thanks to good folks @ Flo Valley FPD for serving the community and providing much of the info in this post. Be sure to check out their recent news update about two sweet old dogs that were saved in a December fire.
More North County nostalgia on the way…
As every good NOCO fan knows, my main goal with this blog is to showcase what’s going on in North County today. It’s not that I don’t like history or nostalgia. Exactly the opposite really. I just don’t think it helps our cause to constantly focus on what North County used to be, or to talk about the community as though it’s nothing but a has-been.
Also, I’m not a baby boomer. So needless to say, I was not among the 6,500 people who eagerly scooped up copies of Cruizin’ North County, a 2008 book of NoCo memories and old photos authored by Craig Kaintz and Bill Kasalko.
But then I got a chance to meet Craig and Bill in person, and they turned out to be very nice guys. I discovered that Craig’s aunt, Kate Poelker, was actually the grade school teacher who first encouraged me to be a writer. (Love that woman!) I also learned that these former North County residents were working on a second book.
That was last year some time, and I just recently got word that their new book is done. Officially released yesterday, it’s called Let’s Go Cruizin’ Again, and just like the first one, it’s filled with North County nostalgia from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, including a wealth of great photos.
When Cruizin’ North County was published, Craig and Bill got a ton of media attention, and it looks like they’re set to repeat that. They’ll be on the Charlie Brennan Show the morning of November 23. You can also catch them at two local book signings: November 27, noon to 3pm @ the Cross Keys Barnes & Noble, and December 3, 11am – 1pm @ Nagle’s in Florissant. (Boomer favorite Bob Kuban will be at the Nagle’s event too.)
So, if you know someone who grew up in North County way back when, you might want to snag a copy of Let’s Go Cruizin’ Again. It’s available at local book sellers or through this website. And who knows? Maybe all this nostalgia will inspire some former NoCo residents to move back home…
Time Capsule: a fun hodgepodge for summertime
Ever notice the Chinese restaurant next to the Ferguson Farmers Market? Well, this is what it looked like as King's Pharmacy, one of the first pharmacies in St. Louis to have drive-thru service.
What happened to the time capsule? That’s what a reader asked me recently. She was talking about one of my most neglected NOCO categories, Time Capsule, which I admit has been a bit ignored. I usually like to focus on North County today, to keep reminding people that we still have a great community up here, but I was cleaning out my files this week and found some goodies that I just had to share.
I actually have a pretty large collection of paper (and digital) items related to North County’s history – maps, postcards, old shopping center directories, etc – so you can expect to see quite a few “capsules” opened in the coming months. Here’s a preview to get us started, just an odd mix of images from all over NoCo….
The old Woolworth's at River Roads Mall in Jennings, which opened in the 1950s and closed in 1991. Remember the lower level?
An early view of Lambert Airport, sans Highway 70
A swinging airport hotel, the Parkway House, in what has to be the 60s
Formerly located at 3570 N. Lindbergh, the Parkway House is described on the back of this postcard as such: “St. Louis’ most unique host. In the main building, each unit is a 3-room suite including living room, bedroom, kitchenette with executive bar, deluxe bath and private terrace. Heated swimming pool. Home of the famous Corinthian Room. Illustrated are two of the new, plush Sir Richard suites complete with sunken living room, executive bar and luxurious ultra-modern decor with king and queen beds.”
Here’s the kind of action you might have seen in the “famous Corinthian Room,” well before the Parkway House became a divey motel/apartment complex like it is today.
Don Cunningham Quartet at Parkway House, St. Louis, September 1965. Photo credit: Picasa/Richard A Oberle
An architectural drawing of the proposed new church building at St. Ann's in Normandy. I'm guessing the steeple didn't make the cut.
Finally, here’s a vintage matchbook made right here in Ferguson, commemorating a place I miss every single time I drive down Florissant Road. Can you imagine how awesome it would be if there was still a bowling alley in downtown Ferguson?!
Ahh, a girl can dream….
St. Stanislaus Museum: preserving NoCo’s frontier history
Founded in 1823, St. Stanislaus Seminary covered nearly 1,000 acres in the Howdershell/Charbonier area. Here it is in 1928, with the river to the north.
It’s a hard life to imagine these days – building your own home, growing all your own food, and doing so in a vast wilderness populated by natives who may or may not want you there. That was the life of early Jesuit missionaries who arrived in North County in 1823, intent on sharing Christianity with local Native Americans.
Residing on 212 acres in the “common fields” of Florissant, the Jesuits constructed various log buildings and ran a small school for Indian boys, who they hoped to train as interpreters. When the school closed in 1831, St. Stanislaus Seminary opened in its place (at what’s now 700 Howdershell Road), and within ten years, it began to resemble the entirely self-sufficient monasteries of medieval Europe.
The Rock Building at St. Stanislaus, built by the Jesuits in 1840. Photo: Rome of the West
In addition to farming their land, the brothers and seminarians at St. Stanislaus quarried massive limestone blocks from the Missouri River bluffs, building themselves a new stone residence in 1840. All of the doors and woodwork were fashioned from walnut trees on the seminary grounds. The Jesuits also fired their own bricks on the spot.
Over the next 100 years, their property would grow to include multiple buildings and nearly 1000 acres, encompassing apple orchards, wheat fields, vineyards, beehives, a butcher shop, a chicken ranch, a creamery, a bakery and even a winery – the only Missouri winery allowed to operate during Prohibition. At the height of St. Stanislaus in the 1930s and 40s, the “priest farm” (as it was known by local residents) was something of a self-contained city, sprawling all the way from Howdershell Road to the Missouri River, including parts of Charbonier Bluff.
By 1971, with seminary enrollment declining and the Jesuits’ land increasing in value, St. Stanislaus was closed, and most of its buildings, except the 1840 limestone “Rock Building,” were sold to the Gateway College of Evangelism. Father Claude Heithaus, a Jesuit professor of archaeology, recognized the historical significance of the Rock Building and the many unique artifacts contained within, and he fought vigorously for their preservation.
On display at St. Stanislaus Museum is the original cross (or an exact early replica) that Father DeSmet gave to Sitting Bull.
As Heithaus knew, many early priests and brothers at St. Stanislaus had played key roles in educating Native Americans and establishing Catholic parishes and universities. Some, like Father Pierre DeSmet, were even renowned figures in frontier history, writing influential books, creating early maps, and documenting Native American customs and culture.
In 1976, with the help of his brother William, Heithaus established the nonprofit St. Stanislaus Historical Museum Society, aiming to preserve and display items from the seminary’s past as well as artifacts related to the frontier history of Florissant and Hazelwood. Operating out of the three-story Rock Building, the museum society carefully tended to its large and diverse collection, which included rare antique books, Renaissance paintings, Navajo rugs, Colonial tools, and garments worn by Father DeSmet himself.
Like a place stuck in time, the Rock Building was also preserved, looking much as it had when the Jesuits lived there. Visitors could see the priests’ dining hall and spartan bedrooms, along with tools, furniture, cigars and other items that they used in their daily lives. For 25 years, “The Museum of Western Jesuit Missions,” as it was known, offered a rare and fascinating glance at monastic and missionary life in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was a true North County treasure – until 2002.
Father Pierre DeSmet, who was said to travel 200,000 miles over the course of his missionary journeys, posing with men from four Native American tribes
That was the year Father Lawrence Biondi decided that the museum’s collection belonged not at the Rock Building, where it had genuine historical relevance, but at the Jesuit-run St. Louis University. Though the St. Stanislaus Historical Museum Society had been solely responsible for the collection’s preservation, Biondi wanted to showcase the artifacts at SLU, so he compelled the Jesuit order to sue the museum society, and unfortunately, the Jesuits won.
In 2003, approximately three-fourths of the museum’s holdings (including its most valuable pieces) were moved to SLU. That same year, the remains of Father DeSmet and other frontier Jesuits were removed from their graves at St. Stanislaus and reinterred at Calvary Cemetery.
By all accounts, it was a sad time for the museum society, and some questioned whether the group would continue. For a while, they displayed some of their remaining artifacts at St. Ferdinand Shrine in Old Town Florissant. But in 2007, they were kindly gifted with a new home: a pre-1860 farmhouse on Charbonier Road, adjacent to rolling fields that were once part of St. Stanislaus. The museum still operates there today.
One of the original beds from St. Stanislaus Seminary is on display at St. Stanislaus Museum, along with other Jesuit artifacts.
Gone are the priceless 17th-century globes and DeSmet cassock that were highlights of the Rock House. But in their place, the museum society has embraced the pastoral, old-timey feel of its new locale and put more emphasis on the Jesuits’ self-sufficient lifestyle. Within sight of the former St. Stanislaus bell tower, museum board members maintain a working chicken coop and large vegetable garden. They also invite period reenactors to camp on-site and to talk about the tools and skills that were necessary in frontier times.
“I love that we’re promoting the idea of self-sufficiency,” says museum board secretary, Pat Jackson. “We’ve planted fruit trees here, and some of our board members do canning. I think we’re showing people a little bit of what it was like at St. Stanislaus, where the priests did everything for themselves.”
Board members harvest eggs and grow vegetables on the grounds of the museum.
Inside the museum, Jackson and other board members have used a handful of key pieces from the Rock House to fashion exhibits. One room boasts Father DeSmet’s own desk, as well as crosses and relics that he and other Jesuits gave to Native Americans. Another room features an original bed from the seminary, accented by simple wooden kneelers that the priests used for prayer and study.
“The furniture we were left with tells a story,” Jackson says. “And what’s nice about this house is that we can arrange the furniture how it might have been used – a desk in the study, chairs and a table in the dining room. It helps you understand the context.”
Upstairs, the museum’s oldest artifacts – textiles from 400-800AD – crown a room already brimming with Native American treasures, most of which were found in North County. “Because of the confluence, this area drew Native Americans from all over the place,” Jackson says. “It’s easier to say which tribes didn’t come here, there were so many.”
The museum displays Native American pottery, arrowheads, jewelry and other items, including artifacts recovered at burial sites on Charbonier Bluff. It also touches on the Lewis and Clark expedition, with frontier-style clothing and fur trapping gear shown beside Native American artwork and early photos of the area.
St. Stanislaus is not a large museum, at least not now. But it’s definitely worth a visit. Its growing collection paints a vibrant picture of what life was like, both at St. Stanislaus Seminary and in frontier North County. And if you come this Sunday, period reenactors will add another layer of interest to this already interesting place, setting up camp outside the museum during Florissant’s Christmas House Tour.
St. Stanislaus Museum, 3030 Charbonier Road, is open every Sunday, 1pm – 4pm. Except for this Sunday, when house tour tickets are $10, admission is free. For more info, call (314) 837-3525.
The entrance to St. Stanislaus Museum is through the back door of this charming pre-Civil War farmhouse at 3030 Charbonier Road.
