This Used to Be St. Louis

May 10, 2019 Posted by: Tom Dewey, Librarian

This Used to be St. Louis, by NiNi Harris. St.  Louis: Reedy Press, 2018.

Historian and author NiNi Harris has written several books about St. Louis.  Her latest, This Used to be St. Louis, is a collection of brief historical entries that reveal the stories behind particular buildings and neighborhoods that have changed over the years. Each entry describes a St. Louis building or neighborhood’s current status, and then explores its origins.

Harris presents topics as diverse as the Mill Creek Pumping Station, Gateway Arch National Park, Union Market, U-Haul Building, Carondelet Historical Society, Tower Grove Park, Soulard Preservation Hall, and many more.

Here are examples of some of the interesting transformations Harris includes: The St. Louis University Art Museum building, near Lindell and Spring, was built by the St. Louis Club in 1901 and was later a longtime regional headquarters for the Woolworth Company. The Drury Inn & Suites St. Louis Convention Center was originally built as Union Market in 1925 and survived until the mid-1980s. Bissinger’s Handcrafted Chocolatiers Building, north of downtown, was first the Katy Railroad Warehouse. St. Louis University’s Office of Admissions is currently located in a 1880s white stone mansion on Lindell Blvd. From 1912 to 1972, it was a boarding house for single women, operated by a religious society called the Daughters of the Queen of Heaven. From 1974 to 1985, the building was occupied by the Church of Scientology.

Harris’s entries are brief but include vital and colorful facts that will help readers appreciate the treasured buildings and neighborhoods. Each entry also includes illustrations.

Readers interested in architecture or St. Louis history will find good reading here.