Friday,
2.4.05: Lafayette Park
I've been thinning out my collection of St. Louis stereo views: the keepers vs. the ebay-bound. I swear my orphans must be having sex in their dark little boxes because every time I look, I seem to have more.
My favorites are the views of the Mississippi waterfront in the 1870s. The least interesting to me are the abundant views of Shaw's Garden and Lafayette Park. I have original prints by the St. Louis company Boehl & Koenig and then I have a bunch of pirated copy photos. (Pirating other people's photos was a lively gray market and the hotbed was in Rochester NY.)
I know a bit about Shaw's Garden, but nothing about Lafayette Park, so I decided to do a little research.
I'm familiar with Lafayette Square only because one of my cousins decided to do some urban homesteading there after the neighborhood was rediscovered in the 1960s. It is now a national historic district.
According to Thomas Keay:
Lafayette
Park is the focal point of the Square, a last link to the little French
settlement of 1764. It is an extension of the St. Louis Commons which
was reserved for public use as pasture and farm land in the European
tradition. It remains the only land within the city never under private
ownership.
The 30 acre park was plotted in 1836, making it not only the oldest of
city parks, but also the first park west of the Mississippi River...
[By] 1860 the population of St. Louis had increased 900% over the
previous 20 years. During the prosperous post-Civil War years, Lafayette
Square became one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in St. Louis and
its park became the most popular recreation spot in the city.
Individuals of both local and national reputation built imposing
residences here. Among them were Montgomery Blair, appointed Postmaster
General by Abraham Lincoln; David Nicholson, prominent wine and grocery
merchant; Louis Brandeis, later U.S. Supreme Court Justice; D.C. Jaccard,
noted jeweler; Charles Nagel, Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the
Taft Administration; Mrs. Firmin Desloge, widow of the mining magnate;
Joseph LaBarge and Horace Bixby, famed steamboat pilots; and three St.
Louis mayors - John S. Thomas, James Britton and Henry W. Kiel.
But by the 1890's newer St. Louis neighborhoods developing to the West
were enjoying increased popularity. The devastating cyclone of May, 1896
hastened the Square's decline. Destruction to the park and surrounding
residences was so extensive that many entrenched families apparently
decided to join the migration.
According to
Hillary Wicai:
The park is slowly coming back to life; the old police station at its southeast corner has been reopened as a museum and more visitors are coming to view the park's treasured relics. Its most notable possessions include statues of Thomas Benton Hart and George Washington, along with Revolutionary War cannons from a British warship, which are considered some of the most interesting relics found in any city park west of the Mississippi.
So that's Lafayette Park. I guess I can understand better why there are so many photographs. During the 1870s and 1880s -- when all these views were taken -- it was the historically French heart of fabulously wealthy St. Louis.
NOTES
Lafayette Square.Org. An excerpt from "A Walk Around The Square" by THOMAS KEAY.
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