Found St. Louis

I got to see the COOLEST THING at the Central Library and I need to tell you about it!

In 1864, St. Louis hosted the Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, a massive fundraising effort for Union soldiers, their families, and formerly enslaved Black people. The event lasted several weeks and it was massive. The fair ended up earning 550,000 in aid, which amounts to about 12,000,000 today.

People across the country contributed items to be raffled or auctioned off at the fair. The raffles were insane! The range of prizes was huge. You could win a handmade quilt, a boat, a horse, billiard table, wreaths made of human hair, carriages, silver bricks etc. The grand prize raffle was a 500-acre farm in St. Louis County - the Smizer farm.

The St. Louis Public Library has something very special from the Sanitary Fair.

One of the items to be auctioned was a book that included signed autographs and original photographs of every US Senator and President Lincoln. It’s like a yearbook of the Senate from 1864. Missouri Senator John B. Henderson had the book created, and the photographs in the book were taken by Mathew Brady who was a renowned Civil War photographer. Mathew Brady’s story is so sad, as apparently he died completely broke and alone in a charity ward in New York.

Senator Henderson donated the book to be auctioned off at the Sanitary Fair.

I’m not sure whose hands the book ended up in during the fair, but it was eventually donated to the St. Louis Public Library and is on display in their Rare Books room. That thing has got to be priceless. I almost fell over when I saw it. It’s just gorgeous (and I don’t even know who any of these senators are lol).

This post showed up as a recommended post in my feed and I could immediately tell that it was AI-slop.

The Ville has an incredibly rich history and to see it told by a non-human is so annoying.

This post will have you thinking Sumner was built in The Ville in 1875. It wasn’t, it was originally downtown and the Sumner we’re familiar was built in 1910.

These AI pages have become so common that they’re beginning to dwarf the folks who work so hard to research and share history. They are also monetized pages, so they’re making money off of every like and share they get.

I just wanted to ask you to please be mindful of the educational content you read on social media.

Tips for determining whether something is AI:

Dozens of posts a day? Likely AI
Page description doesn’t have a humans name listed anywhere? Likely AI
Page that uses a whole lotta words to say almost nothing? Likely AI
Emojis in educational content ? AI AI AI!!

If you want to actually learn about the Ville, check out https://www.4theville.org/thevillehistory

🏫 The Ville neighborhood in St. Louis wasn't just a place to live. It was where Black St. Louis built its future — school by school, business by business, family by family. ✊

During the era of segregation, the Ville became one of the most remarkable African American communities in the entire United States. Sumner High School — the first Black high school west of the Mississippi River, founded in 1875 — produced an extraordinary roster of graduates including Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, and Arthur Ashe. The neighborhood was home to the first Black-owned hospital in St. Louis, Black-owned newspapers, insurance companies, and a thriving cultural life that existed entirely within and despite the walls of segregation.

The Ville's story is one of the most powerful examples of community self-determination in Missouri history. Did you know about the Ville's legacy? Tell us what you know in the comments, and follow Missouri Untold to keep these stories alive. 👇🙏

For many years, this building at 2215 Scott Avenue was occupied by bakery supply companies who were mixing, packaging, and distributing various flours for baked goods. You may notice the DIXIE CREAM DONUT FLOUR sign on the front.

And while I could write a whole bunch about the flour companies that occupied this building, that's not the purpose of this post.

This building is one of the only buildings that remain from when this was the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood. What was once a large vibrant Black community in St. Louis was completely eradicated for the sake of ~urban renewal~

20,000 residents, gone
5,000 buildings, gone
Churches, restaurants, doctors offices, entertainment venues, banks, cultural institutions, gone
A massive community, totally wiped out.

I am writing this because the incredible exhibit about Mill Creek Valley at the Missouri History Museum is set to close July 12.

The curator of this exhibit, Gwen Moore, is from Mill Creek Valley and was one of the many families displaced. That personal experience brings something to the exhibit that I can't really put into words. It just makes it so much more powerful.

Please go see this exhibit before it closes forever!!!!!!

The pictures in this post are just a fraction of what St. Louis lost in Mill Creek Valley. All photos are from the Missouri Historical Society.

St. Louis is known for our incredible public school buildings. Most of the buildings that get all the attention are the castle-like buildings of William Ittner and Rockwell Milligan. These are the guys that brought you Sumner, Roosevelt, McKinley and like 70 other school buildings.

Our ornate school buildings get so much attention that they end up overshadowing our 1800s school buildings, like the one pictured, Euclid School.

Euclid School (originally called Washington School) was opened in 1893 as a four room, single-story building. Multiple additions over the next decade allowed for the building to fit ONE THOUSAND STUDENTS inside.

This building represents the standard floor plan of the late 1800s buildings . Three stories, 12 rooms. We only have a handful of these babies left.

I'm sure you can imagine my confusion when I read that two days ago, SLPS voted to demolish this building even though there is a developer who lives in the neighborhood, who has financial support, architectural plans, and a vision to turn it into apartments. St. Louis Public Schools rejected him.

Instead, SLPS will pay $1,000,000 to demolish it this building.

One of my favorite facts about the Baden neighborhood is that before it was full of buildings, it was full of grapes. There were acres and acres of vineyards. If you ever wondered why there are street names like Grape and Concord in the neighborhood, well now you know.

But this building right here? This thing is a GEM. Located at 8449 N Broadway, it was originally part of Paulus Gast's wine garden. Paulus Gast was one of the guys with a ton of grapes and a wine company. He created this relaxing wine garden where people could relax in the summer away from the chaos of the city. The garden was very popular in the 1880s-90s.

Gast went on to open a brewery in the 1890s, more on that later!