By Martha K. Baker
Photograph by Danny Elchert
Rae Mohrmann moved into the Old Ferguson West neighborhood 28 years ago, back when downtown Ferguson, which included a movie theater and a bowling alley, fairly bustled. “I have seen the neighborhood shine and decline, but it’s been blooming again in the past few years,” says Mohrmann, a marathoner who often runs with her dog, Gordita. She credits the neighborhood’s current rise to the formation of Old Ferguson West Neighbors.
Shannon Howard, executive director of Ferguson Citywalk, founded the neighborhood association in 2003 and handed the reins to Dwayne T. James last year.
“We’ve been smart,” says James, a civil engineer who’s lived in Old Ferguson West since 1997. “Shannon developed relationships with the councilmen and the mayor and made it a point to understand their criteria. Instead of going to the city with our hands out, neighbors worked together to do what we could—and then we asked for help.”
The neighborhood association saved a house on Tiffin Avenue from demolition, called volunteers to clean up the place and arranged for its rehabilitation. Old Ferguson West, comprising 850 homes, not only stays in touch with investors, real-estate agents and property owners to goose rehab and redevelopment projects, but also helps neighbors meet the city’s housing codes and delivers goody baskets to newcomers. The association sponsors a double-Dutch jumprope team and is working with Zion Lutheran Church (up Carson Road from the Whistle Stop frozen-custard stand) to develop a program that will give kids something to do besides “walking down the middle of the street,” James says.
Anchor: Central Elementary School has been a steady presence in this neighborhood for 125 years. Daydreamers in class hear the whistles of as many as 20 Norfolk Southern freight trains a day as they chug past the old Ferguson Station.
History: Most of Old Ferguson was owned by two families, the Cases and the Tiffins, and many of the homes they built still stand.
Signs of progress: A $320,000 neighborhood-investment grant will pay for identifying signs designed to highlight the neighborhood’s “skyline” of gables and trees.
Lore: Oral tradition attributes the dogleg in Tiffin Street to Old Man Tiffin, a busy Ferguson homebuilder, who didn’t want “young whippersnappers racing down the street in their buggies.”
On the map: Much of what’s now dubbed “Old Ferguson” lay within the original boundaries when Ferguson incorporated in 1894. Full of steep hills and doglegged streets, the area covers both sides of Florissant Road, which runs down the middle of town, and is bounded by Dade Avenue, Airport and Florissant roads and Maline Creek.
Celebrities: In 1905, Louis Maull, creator of the famous barbecue sauce, bought the house at 425 Wesley that’s now owned by historian Ruth Brown. Maull served as a police commissioner for Ferguson but was not allowed to grill suspects.
Hangout: The Ferguson Station depot, established in 1855 and long empty, now houses the Whistle Stop, where kids gorge themselves on “cowcatcher concretes” (peanut butter cups and chocolate syrup). The station’s walls are lined with photos of Old Ferguson; vitrines exhibit memorabilia from olden times when commuters took the train to work downtown.
Architecture: Victorian “century” homes, Craftsman homes, even a Sears house
