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High Drama: 1861–1900
Until the Civil War, St. Louis was a place without boundaries. The rules were few, and breakable; very little constrained behavior, and public and private were one and the same. For civic-minded types with an orderly cast of mind, this led to a startlingly generous altruism. For rowdy unmarried fortune seekers, migrants who, as William Greenleaf Eliot wrote sadly, “think only of the fortune they have come to seek” and the pickpockets and “pigeon droppers” who came to steal from them, it was an invitation to license. St. Louis fast became a city of contrasts: golden mansions and overcrowded boardinghouses, noble leaders and cocky criminals. The old French-Spanish-American tensions had melted into a stew with many other ingredients, and little was needed to stir the pot.Henry Shaw (1800–1889)
Who he was: An Englishman who emigrated from Sheffield at 18 to find new markets for his family’s metalwork company. Shaw was so successful that he retired at 39 and spent the second half of his life as a private banker and public-spirited philanthropist. What he did: Opened the gates of his 50-acre garden in the country to St. Louisans in 1859. The “Missouri Botanical Garden” was the first of its kind in the nation. He added a museum and a library, and in 1870 he gave the city Tower Grove Park. In 1885 he affiliated with Washington University to open a department of botany. Why it mattered: He created beauty, furthered knowledge and made sure both could be shared for decades to come.
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Vital Jarrot (1805–1877)
Who he was: Indian agent, newspaper publisher, civic activist, banker, real estate developer and mayor of Illinoistown, now East St. Louis. What he did: Son of the founder of Cahokia, he used his father’s money and street cred to make Illinoistown a real city. He got dikes built to control the Mississippi, started the first newspaper and led the syndicate that built Illinois’ first railroad. (The contractor quit, so he hired 100 men to finish, driving 40-foot trunks into the ground with a 1,400-pound battering ram.) Why it mattered: The civilizing consequences of his leadership bear out Lincoln’s words: “I personally know this man—Vital Jarrot—to be one of the best of men.”
William McKee (1815–1879)
Who he was: One of the masterminds of the Whiskey Ring, which defrauded the U.S. Treasury of more than $1 million a year by siphoning off tax revenue from “crooked whiskey.” Owner of the St. Louis Globe (he allegedly purchased the Democrat to silence reporting about the Whiskey Ring). What he did: Little things. Like forge the 1870 census so St. Louis’ population figures weren’t lagging behind Chicago’s. Why it mattered: His drive and money fed a newspaper that kept the Post honest and alert for decades.
Where would we be without ... David Nicholson, the only distiller who didn’t leave town after the Whiskey Ring scandal.
James B. Eads (1820–1887)
Who he was: The transplanted Indianan responsible for what Invention & Technology Magazine calls “one of the great engineering successes of the 19th century.” What he did: Engineered a 6,220-foot-long marvel across the Mississippi River—but not without tribulation and even tragedy. Bedrock was below 25 feet of water and 80 feet of sand; 14 workers died from decompression sickness. The astonishingly self-assured Eads and his crew persevered nevertheless, and Eads Bridge opened on Independence Day 1874. Why it mattered: The bridge was meant to connect St. Louis to increasingly lucrative rail traffic from the East. Sad to say, insane railroad speculation drove the St. Louis and Illinois Bridge Company into bankruptcy the following April. But Mound City still had Eads’ magisterial span.
Father Moses Dickson (1824–1901)
Who he was: An African-American abolitionist, minister and Mason. What he did: In 1846, Dickson, who had seen intolerable things during his travels in the South as a barber, organized the African-American secret society the Knights of Liberty. They raised a nationwide army to obliterate slavery—and were nearly 50,000 strong and ready to fight—but when civil war looked imminent, Dickson urged them to wait. Why it mattered: Dickson’s Knights helped to deliver 70,000 slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad. Later he became president of the Refugee Relief Board, which sheltered nearly 20,000 former slaves.
And could we perhaps have done without ... Alonso and Charles Slayback, who created the “Mystic Order of the Veiled Prophet of the Enchanted Realm,” its elegant secrets used for decades to reinforce tradition—but also class lines and bigotry.
William Torrey Harris (1835–1909)
Who he was: The “philosopher-king” of the St. Louis Public Schools. What he did: As super–intendent of St. Louis schools, stressed the need to tame tiny “savages,” by use of reason, into self-realization. Championed a free liberal-arts education in the late 1800s, when the wealthy owned the world of ideas. Why it mattered: The Harris in Harris-Stowe State University, he was partnered with Harriet Beecher for good reason: He saw education as a way out of many kinds of slavery.
Edward Butler (1838–1911)
Who he was: Democratic central committeeman known as “Colonel Ed,” said by his contemporaries to be “the absolute ruler of Gilded Age St. Louis.” What he did: Owned seven blacksmith shops, sometimes shoeing as many as 2,000 horses a week (everyone could recite his slogan: “No Frog, No Foot: No Foot, No Horse”). But Butler was also St. Louis’ answer to Boss Tweed, grooming Democratic candidates and using ballot-stuffers and straw election judges to skew the vote their way. One witness testified in 1874 that he’d seen a Fifth Ward judge “chew ballots and spit them onto the floor until his jaw was swollen.” Why it mattered: Butler took graft to a new level in St. Louis, and though reformers lessened the influence of his “dark lantern” political circle, they were unable to eradicate it.
Where would we be without ... Louis Sullivan, who gave us one of his masterpieces, the ornamented brick and terra-cotta Wainwright Building—one of the world’s first skyscrapers.
Edward Mallinckrodt Sr. (1845–1928) and Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. (1878–1967)
Who they were: St. Louis–born, German-educated Edward Mallinckrodt Sr. co-founded G. Mallinckrodt & Company, Manufacturing Chemists, in 1867, with his brothers, Otto and Gustav. They died young; the reins went to Edward Jr. in 1928. What they did: Established and led the first chemical manufacturing company west of Philadelphia. During WWI and WWII, Mallinckrodt manufactured narcotic analgesics for the troops and purified uranium for the Manhattan Project. The company remains a leading producer of both. Why it mattered: The good: While Mallinckrodt is now a billion-dollar division of Covidien, its headquarters remain in Hazelwood, and its radiology division still works diagnostic miracles for Barnes-Jewish and Wash. U. The bad: Traces of uranium, TNT and trichloroethylene linger around the company’s former Weldon Spring plant, even after a 16-year, $1 billion cleanup effort.
Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911)
Who he was: A lanky Hungarian soldier manqué who immigrated to the U.S. and proved the pen could indeed be mightier than the sword. What he did: Founded the St. Louis Post-Dispatch—and co-founded journalism as we know it. Why it mattered: Joseph Pulitzer, almost a century after his 1911 demise, remains a creature of confounding contrasts. During his lifetime, he both plumbed the depths of yellow journalism and scaled the heights of freedom of the press. St. Louisans slight his contribution to our great national dialogue at their own risk. “A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself,” Pulitzer wrote in 1904—and his words still resonate.
David R. Francis (1850–1927)
Who he was: Kentucky-born, BMOC at Wash. U. and its law school. President, Louisiana Purchase Exposition Co.; head, Francis Bros & Co.; veep, Merchants-Laclede National Bank; director, Mississippi Valley Trust Co.; pres., Merchants’ Exchange; Sec. of the Interior under Grover Cleveland; Ambassador to Russia (1916–18). The gym at Wash. U., the quad at Mizzou and a park in St. Louis Hills all carry his name.What he did: What didn’t he do is easier. Came to St. Louis when he was 16, and from that time, he was connected to the city’s social, commercial and political growth. The only man in history to be mayor of St. Louis (his tenure was noted for its integrity and efficiency) and governor of Missouri. Why it mattered: The 1904 World’s Fair—Francis’ baby—brought 20 million people to St. Louis, creating a touchstone and, say Fair-weary progressives,
a tombstone.
Where would we be without ... Hiram Leffingwell, whose vision made Forest Park possible—or Albert Todd, who insisted that since the park would be permanent, “the territory ought to be large.”
Homer G. Phillips (1880–1931)
Who he was: Attorney. Activist. Die-hard Republican. Murdered waiting for a streetcar at Aubert Avenue and Delmar Boulevard on June 18, 1931 (unsolved). What he did: In 1915, he was one of a group of black professionals who appealed to the city for a hospital for blacks. The one granted, in 1918, was deemed “inadequate” from the get-go. Phillips led the drive for $1 million to erect a new hospital for blacks as part of a 1923 bond issue. His persistence led to construction of an Art Deco complex in the Ville neighborhood, where it operated until 1979, a symbol of pride to blacks and a political football for whites. Why it mattered: “Homer G.” was dedicated in 1937 as the nation’s biggest (685-bed) and best hospital for the care of sick and poor blacks, and for the training of black nurses and doctors.
Susan Blow (1843–1916)
Who she was: Daughter of wealth, well educated and traveled; a reformer, writer and lecturer. What she did: In 1873, opened the country’s first successful kindergarten at the Des Peres School in Carondelet. In a light-filled room proportioned to the little rug rats, she exposed 68 poor and unruly children to creativity and culture, thereby preparing them to improve society. She ran the school, unpaid, for 11 years, then spread the idea of kindergarten throughout America. Why it mattered: A pioneer in urban education, Blow took the St. Louis public schools’ reputation up a significant notch.
And what would St. Louis have looked like without ... former mayor John Darby, whose rant against the County Court’s “exorbitant” taxation of burdened city dwellers and its “enormous, unjustifiable and scandalous waste of public money” triggered the 1876 separation of city from county.
