St. Louis

Historic Lemp Brewery, in St. Louis
The factory, on the site of the old Lemp Brewery, closed in 1992.

At the time of the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, the Lemp Brewing Co of St. Louis was the third largest brewery in America. Founded by a German-American entrepreneur, Adam Lemp, in the city’s south central area, the brewery proved to be an innovator up until the time of Prohibition. Family misfortunes and the Temperance movement took their toll. In response to the outlawing of booze, the Lemp facility attempted to brew a non-alcoholic beverage called Cerva, which flopped. The company could not sustain the factory operations.

In 1922, the family owners sold the complex, covering an entire city block, to the International Shoe Co. for practically nothing. The ISCO in turn finally sold the complex in 1992, leaving it without major tenants. The old brewery and factory site is considered an archtecturally and historically significant site in St. Louis, and the Lemp Hall is still used for catered events.

If you find yourself in St. Louis, a visit to Cherokee Street, which ends at the Brewery’s doorstep, is well worth your time. I lived nearly two decades in St. Louis and knew nothing about this place until I came back recently. Proves to me how ignorant I was as a teen and how wonderful older American cities can be if you bother to spend time exploring.

For the brew historians among you, and there are many I think, here are some interesting anecdotes:

  • Lemp brewed the first successful lager beer in the United States.
  • Lemp used natural underground caves in St. Louis to allow its beer to ferment and produce a superior product.
  • Lemp was the first shipping brewery to establish a national shipping strategy.
  • It was the first brewery to run its own railroad, the Western Cable Railway Company, that connected all of the plant’s main buildings to shipping yards near the Mississippi River.
  • The mansion of the Lemp Family is included on many haunted homes and buildings lists, if you believe in ghosts.

A wonderful documentary that does not use a distorted fisheye lens, like a GoPro I used here, can be found on the Built St. Louis web site.

Summer’s perfect food, a ripe, sweet Missouri-grown watermelon
God’s perfect food, the Missouri watermelon (taken at the Soulard Market, in St. Louis).

I practically lived on watermelon for about 15 years of my young life, growing up in St. Louis. Missouri, hot as hell as it was, also was an ideal place to grow the fruit, and the sweetness was to die for. Eating all that watermelon was maybe a gift from heaven, as watermelon is all natural, nutritious, and full of healthy vitamins (A and C) and minerals (potassium and magnesium). It has far fewer calories than processed food, and it reportedly has been linked to promoting recovery in athletes. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture in a separate picture page.)

As beautiful and grand as architecture get, all in St. Louis
Located near Lafayette Square
This neoclassical mansion from the pre-Civil War era was almost destroyed to build Interstate 55, but thankfully activists spared it from the wrecking ball. It is located overlooking the freeway, next to the Lemp Brewery complex.
A Romanesque style house is a testament to St. Louis’ beautiful use of bricks.

I grew up in Metro St. Louis until I was 18. I did a fabulous city architecture tour in my senior year of high school and was blown away by the depth and richness of St. Louis’ architectural past. I learned it was misfortune and visionary legislation that made this possible.

A disastrous and deadly fire in 1849 led the city passing an ordinance preventing the construction of wooden buildings. The easy access to clay deposits led to a boom in brick buildings that provide a richness almost unparalleled in any American city. The money from the industrial era and real-estate speculation allowed for the construction of amazing homes and neighborhoods, even though slums were widely prevalent. Those gems from the golden era of St. Louis remain today. The pictures here are from the historic Cherokee Street area, near the river in South St. Louis, and the Lafayette Square area, in south central St. Louis. In racial terms, those remain mostly white, but that is also changing. Cherokee Street now hosts Hispanic celebrations, due to their large presence.

A web site dedicated to St. Louis’ diverse architectural styles provides a nice overview for those who do not have a background in architecture, with a nice sample of the gems any visitor can find with a map and simple curiosity. The styles I have captured are mostly Second Empire, inspired by French designs, and one Neoclassical design for the Chatillon mansion.

Christmastime at Concordia Seminary
Luther Tower stands majestically at the entrance to Concordia Seminary.
A scene from the campus of Concordia Seminary.
The photo was taken from the main courtyard at Concordia Seminary.

Concordia Seminary is one of the most beautiful academic campuses in the country, in my book. The seminary is affiliated with the more conservative branch of the Lutheran Church in the United Stated (Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod), but that is not why I have an affinity for this place.

I used to live very close to here, and I always pay a visit when I visit family in the St. Louis area, mainly because I find the campus to be so lovely. The seminary was built like many homes, churches, and public buildings in the St. Louis area, with a sense of permanence and with stones and slate roofs. If I were to pick any place to shoot a film that needed an “elite university look,” this would be the place.

All of these photographs were taken with my GoPro.

(Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

The crown cultural jewel of St. Louis

The portico on the entrance to the St. Louis Art Museum reads “dedicated to art and free to all.” That is a simple, elegant, and powerful mission statement. It remains free to this day. The structure, designed after the Roman Baths of Caracalla, was built for the 1904 World’s Fair. The museum contains some great treasures, including classic American oil paintings from the 1800s (think George Caleb Bingham and his Raftsman Playing Cards), a large collection of paintings by Expressionist painter Max Beckman, a superb gallery of Polynesian art, a dizzying array of West African art, and so much more. A lot of money from a lot of rich people has enabled this institution to amass this collection.

I always visit the building during my trips to see family there. No trip to St. Louis is complete without standing under the statue of Louis IX, for whom French settlers named this once great American city. Here are four views of the entrance to the museum and the statue any St. Louisan knows. (Click on each photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Some St. Louis Art Museum treasures, seen through a GoPro

The St. Louis Art Museum was built for the 1904 World’s Fair. It replicates the Roman Baths of Caracalla. The museum is free to all who enter. I have been coming here for decades now, now just on the family visits. Today I brought my GoPro to capture some of the more well-known pieces in the museum’s great catalogue, modern and ancient. If you come to the city, put this on your to do list. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Odd and scenic sights on the Forest Park Running Trail

I grew up in the St. Louis area. One of my favorite places remains Forest Park, perhaps one of the nation’s top tier public parks. It is both historic and beautiful as a natural place in an urban setting. There is a six-mile running trail that circles the outer edge of the park that takes one by a bird sanctuary, a golf course, the Jefferson Memorial Building dating from the 1904 World’s Fair, some artificial ponds where urban fisherman really do fish, and the St. Louis Science Center. The latter has a life-size diaroma model of a tyrannosaurus rex battling a triceratops, which were among my favorite critters growing up.

One of the oddest attractions is a monument to the Civil War veterans from the Confederacy, highlighting the city’s legacy as both a Southern and Northern community–a racial and sometimes divisive legacy that remains today, as seen recently in protests in Ferguson. There is also a competing statue nearby of German-American veterans of the Union Army from the Civil War. These are all visible from the running trail. I decided to photograph these sights today using my GoPro Camera to capture the scenes with a fish-eye view.

Runners, put on you shoes and do a lap or two when you visit. You will love it. (Click on each photo to see larger pictures on separate picture pages.)

The St. Louis Arch, inside looking out
I stood under the Arch in May 2013 and snapped this shot during a fast-arriving spring storm (2014).

The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Mo., is one of the world’s greatest monuments. I grew up in its shadow, always in awe. The 630-foot steel structure, designed by genius architect Eero Saarinen, stands on the banks of the Mississippi River, as a monument to the country’s historic expansion into the West. Beneath the museum one can explore that story, including the impacts on Native Americans, at the National Park Service-run Museum of Westward Expansion. If you do not take a long elevator trip to the top, you can stand underneath it and gaze at is beautiful form. Surprisingly, I have yet to see this great structure destroyed in a Hollywood blockbuster by marauding aliens, large monsters, or natural disasters. One day the Arch will get a starring role, I know.

I published a black and white version of this photo on my black and white photo gallery.