This map, plotted out by Norbury Wayman, shows the various locations of steamboat lines and related companies on the St. Louis levee, detailing three periods of time; before 1865; 1865 - 1900; and 1900 - 1953. Lines and companies are donated by name, location and years of operation. Nearby streets are mapped as well, for easy frame of reference. Scale in feet: 100 ft. = 1 inch.
Fourth and Washington, looking south. Miss Elizabeth A. Mageon, Milliner right, is listed at 709 North Fourth in 1878 and J.H. Crane, Furniture wholesale and retail, Fourth, cor. of Washington, was one of the big advertisers in the 1878 directory. Crane's name can be made out on the store at the left. The Benton Bellefontaine horse car and Fourth street horse car a renegotiating the busy intersection without help of a traffic officer. The building housing Miss Mageon's ship was the National Guard Armory.
To the rivermen, whose steamers delivered the cargo that made St. Louis one of the nation's largest thoroughfare. But to the people who lived in this booming metropolis in the 1870s, Fourth... Fourth street, the commercial artery of St. Louis, had everything- from fancy milliner... the Benton Bellefontaine and Fourth street horse cars negotiating the busy intersection...
Fourth was "The Street" to residents of this booming metropolis in the 1870's. This scene, looking south from Washington avenue, shows the busy commercial artery which had everything, from millinery rooms to hack stands.
After the great fire of 1849, which wiped out much of the business district along the levee, the leading merchants of the city began moving "uptown." Following the Civil War the commercial section of St. Louis centered around Third, Fourth, and Fifth Streets. this 1878 photo, north from Morgan (now Delmar), shows some of the business houses of that era. The four-story building on the left is that of the B. Nugent Dry Goods Company, destined for a while to be one of the largest department stores in the city.
Fourth and Chestnut, looking west. This is one of the hardest of famous Boehl negatives to date. The Ohio & Missouri ticket office occupied the Old Planters' House basement (right) throughout the 70s and 80s and the Tax Collector's sign on the Courthouse was also a hardly perennial. Best authorities give a date of about 1875 for the picture, the pole (right) probably carrying a telegraph line which was the only utility strung overhead at that date. Note the hack stand in the shadow of the Courthouse.
Old Planters House is at the right. Across the street are hack stands and, for taxpayers, a reminder sign on the courthouse, "Collector of the revenue, tax department."
The east side of Fourth street between Olive and Locust, showing the Everett House, Pingee & Brown, Prop., with the upper veranda and iron railing which formed a hotel's trademark. The corner building on the far right housed Hall's Bafe and Look Company, J. J. Starr, manager, which is listed at 302 North Fourth in the 1872 directory and had moved to 410 North Third in 1878. Scarritt Furniture, whose sign can be made out at the corner of Locust, was at 400 North Fourth in 1872 and had also moved in 1878, putting the date of this photograph at about 1875.
On the east side of the street (photo to left) [(this photo)] is the famous Everett House, with the upper veranda and iron railing, trademarks of hotels in that era. In five years the same scene (right)[(different photo)] changed considerably. The hotel had its front dressed up with additional porches and and awnings. The skyline also changed with the erection of the Goodyear Rubber Co. sign, then considered one of the highest in city.
Once one of old St. Louis' better known hotels, on Fourth between Morgan (now Delmar) and Franklin, the St. Nicholas began losing its glory in the 1870s when this photo was made. On Jan. 4, 1884, the structure, then occupied by stores, was burned to the ground. Fire department records list it the most difficult in history. It was fought during a "veritable Arctic blizzard" with temperature standing at 26 degrees below zero.
Broadway looking south from Chestnut. Showing court house, Bryant and Stratton Business College and Southern Hotel on left side of plate.
Other caption is incomplete.
St. Louis on a Busy Day- in 1870. You may not believe it, but this was the way Fourth and Chestnut looked to the country gentlemen who drove into town in their buggies and contemplated a trip to Louisville over the "Vandalia Route,"... street car going in the opposite direction.
St. Louis Then and Now: The photo at left was taken at Fourth and Chestnut streets in 1870, six years before the city divorced the County on grounds of incompatibility and non-support. In that horse-drawn era, St. Louisans did not foresee the tremendous growth and development of city (right photo) and choked off future expansion by voting to go it alone.
A Bustling St. Louis in 1870 became fourth largest city in the nation, according to the census of that year. The race with Chicago was hot and St. Louis still clung to ideas of becoming the dominant city of the Midwest and possibly the nation's capital. But 10 years later Chicago forged ahead and St. Louis subsequently was passed by five other cities.
