Houses were reduced to rubble, trees twisted to stumps and streetcars to splinters by the 1896 tornado, as this photograph taken on Lafayette avenue, looking east from Jefferson avenue, reveals.
Emil Boehl was a St. Louis photographer who primarily focused his camera on St. Louis streets, buildings, and locales. Born in Calvoerde, Germany, in 1839, Boehl immigrated to St. Louis in 1854. After serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, Boehl returned to St. Louis in 1864 and opened a photography studio with Lawrence Koenig that spring. With Koenig focusing on portraiture, Boehl became one of the most prolific St. Louis scenic photographers active in the latter half of the 19th Century. The Boehl/Koenig partnership lasted until 1897. Boehl retired from photography in 1919 and died later that year on the 12th of December.
The Emil Boehl Collection consists of three series. The collection contains images dating from 1850 to ca. 1906. The collection’s archival materials include photographic prints and negatives. According to historians Peter E. Palmquist and Thomas R. Kailbourn, Boehl’s career was from 1864 to 1919, and he was known to sell prints of Thomas Easterly’s daguerreotypes. In light of those facts, some dates in the Boehl Collection may be labelled incorrectly and/or some images may not be Boehl’s.
This photograph shows a cobblestone cross-street fitted with a gas powered street light and a series of telephone wires. In the mid-ground there are two horse drawn carriages, one is an enclosed passenger carriage and the other has an open top and is being driven by two workmen. In the left portion of the photograph there is a large pile of cobblestones and a steam locomotive. The locomotive is identified on the photograph as "engine 81 of the Terminal Railroad Association". The background of the image contains a tall smokestack and several large factory buildings. The buildings include a Simmons Hardware Co. Warehouse, a Western Electric Company building, and several industrial sites.
At left is the way Frankie Baker appeared back in 1899 when she shot Allen (Johnny) Brit, the murder on which she claims the famous Frankie and Johnny ballad was based. At the right is the way Frankie appeared yesterday when she arrived in St. Louis to press her $200,000 character defamation suit against a film company for a movie version of the murder. (Feb. 13, 1942), Unheralded then and unknown today, a turn-of-the-century black St. Louis musician took the Targee Street boarding house shooting of Albert (or Allen) Britt and created an epic tragedy-ballad of star-crossed lovers. (Feb. 20, 1979)
A competitive design submission for the Missouri Building planned for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. The design was submitted by architect Isaac S. Taylor and the illustration was printed as no. 857 on May 28,1892 in American Architect and Building News.
A decorative arch, put in place for the visiting Elks, as pictured at Anheuser-Busch Brewery in 1899. Image from St. Louis Mercantile Library collections.