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.
Two original captions: "This is the Anheuser-Busch brewery, photographed in 1899, with a decorative arch in place in honor of visiting Elks, who held their national convention in St. Louis in June of that year. Malt house and grain elevators may be seen in the background." "The Anheuser-Busch brewery in 1899. The decorative arch welcomed visiting Elks who held their convention in St. Louis in June of that year. The bank partly visible at right is the Old South Side Trust Company."
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.
Place: Broadway and Chestnut street. Time: The gay nineties [(1890s)], when this arch of gas lamps bridged Broadway.
Oldtimers say this old print looks north on Broadway. A Broadway cable car is in the foreground and a Pine street trolley car has just crossed (to the right) behind it. The horse (left) is waiting in front of the Ohio & Mississippi Railway ticket office, now a parking lot. The buildings on the right are the Clifton House, a furniture store; Mills & Averill, tailors, and, beyond Pine street, the old Post-Dispatch building and the American Central Building. The Telegraphers' National Bank now stands on the site of Mills & Averill. The gas-lamp arch bears portraits of all the Presidents up to and including Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland...
Broadway looking south from Washington. The illumination bug bit St. Louis in 1882 when 140 plumbers scurried to set up gas pipes for lamplit arches along 44 blocks of the business section. At a cost of $20,000, 21,000 globes of different colors were set twinkling above the streets.
"Tens of thousands of spectators gazed with admiration on the display evening after evening," wrote a contemporary observer. "Thousands of European tourists, who were attracted by the novelty and magnitude of the undertaking, pronounced it the most gorgeous street spectacle they had ever witnessed and so infinitely superior to the best Old World productions as to make anything in the nature of comparison out of the question."
The illuminations continued for a decade in what St. Louisians proudly called the "Carnival City of America", and were climaxed by gas and electric illuminations put on in the autumn of 1892. This pictures shows the arches on Broadway in the early 1890s.
Broadway looking south from Washington, 1898. Cable car + illumination.
The illumination bug bit the festivities association hard and it ordered set up on 44 blocks in the downtown section 21,000 gas lights with different colored globes. The display was so spectacular that it was made an annual event for 10 years. Photo shows the gas light arches on Broadway in early 1890s.