Photograph by Ginger Garvey
You've read our St. Louis history feature, 100 People Who Shaped St. Louis—now test your mental mettle against our quiz.
1. Which St. Louis sports team was originally known as the Cleveland Spiders?
A. The Blues. Established in 1929 as a Great Lakes rival for the Chicago Blackhawks, a team founded just three years earlier, the Spiders underwent several name changes over the next 40 years, first to the Falcons, later to the Barons. Unfortunately, this did little to improve their fortunes, and in 1973, insurance tycoon Sid Salomon Jr. brought the beleaguered blue-and-white team to St. Louis, renaming it to reflect the city’s musical heritage.
B. The Cardinals. Well, sort of. In 1899, the Robison brothers owned two ball clubs in the same league: the Cleveland Spiders and the St. Louis Perfectos. When they realized a team in St. Louis would draw more fans, they transferred over most of the Spiders’ good players, and soon folded the Cleveland team. The Perfectos, also known as the Browns, were renamed the Cardinals in 1900.
C. The Rams. Founded in 1936, the Spiders spent 10 years in Cleveland before creeping away to sunny Los Angeles in 1946. Angelenos wanted no part of the team’s unconventional name—residents felt so strongly about the issue that the L.A. Times actually put it to a vote. “The Rams” won the Times’ poll by a landslide, and was on team jerseys by year’s end. After nearly 50 seasons in L.A., the team made the move to St. Louis in 1995.
2. While it’s true that Tennessee Williams’ formative experiences took place here, it’s also true that he hated the place. What was his pet name for the city?
A. St. Pew-is. Williams first arrived in St. Louis in 1918, just three years after the huge tropical storm that made the sewage-choked River des Peres overflow its banks.
B. St. Pollution. “It stinks,” he once said. “I found St. Louisans cold, smug, complacent, intolerant, stupid and provincial.”
C. St. Stinko. With this, Williams anticipated a moniker we’ve heard dropped around here for years: Monstinko.
3. Which company put the “shoes” in St. Louis’ original slogan and claim to fame, “first in booze, blues and shoes”?
A. Wohl Shoe Company. David P. Wohl, Sr. had his fingers in just about every pie at one time or another—and broke the knees of his competitors. Well, not really. But Wohl’s legacy in this city, both shoe-wise and philanthropy-wise, abides, with his charitable donations benefiting several local universities, numerous hospitals, the JCC and the Girl Scouts, among others.
B. Brown Shoe Company. This is the name most people think of now when they think about St. Louis–based shoe companies—Brown swallowed up Wohl when David Sr. retired. When company founder George Warren Brown died, his widow endowed Washington University’s School of Social Work in his name. And his company lives on, with brands including Buster Brown, Naturalizer and LifeStride doing a cool $2.3 billion in annual sales.
C. International Shoe Company. Founded by Edgar E. Rand in 1898, Rand Shoe almost immediately began acquiring its rivals, renaming itself International Shoe Company in 1911. By the mid-’60s, the company had been renamed INTERCO Incorporated, and after several more decades of corporate restructuring, spun off most of its shoe holdings in the ’90s to re-envision itself as Furniture Brands International, owner of Henredon, Maitland-Smith, Broyhill, Lane and Thomasville.
4. The first cocktail party was thrown here in May 1917 by Mrs. Julius S. Walsh Jr. What venerable St. Louis institution now owns the Walsh mansion?
A. The Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis. This mansion at 4510 Lindell has, since 1924, been the home of the city’s presiding archbishop. Its first resident after the Walshes? Archbishop John J. Glennon, at that time the youngest archbishop in the world, who would later be named cardinal. The home’s current resident is Archbishop Raymond Burke, who in 2006 was appointed a member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s second-highest judicial authority.
B. The Missouri Historical Society. In 2002, upon learning that the home was slated for the wrecking ball, St. Louis County Parks preservationist Esley Hamilton relentlessly campaigned for its inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. Unfortunately, its design by local architect Edmund Jungenfeld failed to earn it a spot on the register—but an anonymous benefactor, hearing of the home’s plight, provided 11th-hour funds to the historical society to restore and donate the home, preserving it for posterity.
C. The Pointer Family, owners of The Haunted Lemp Mansion. The Walsh mansion, abandoned since its owners’ death in 1924, went on the block alongside the Lemp mansion in 1977 as part of a two-for-one deal. Like its sister property, the home was originally built for a St. Louis brewer, William F. Nolker, who reportedly haunts the premises. Further development of The Haunted Walsh Mansion has been on the back burner since then, but the property is now set to open for business in late 2008.
5. What St. Louis neighborhood was home, at various points, to writers T.S. Eliot, Tennessee Williams and William S. Burroughs?
A. Lafayette Square. Its Victorian homes have long provided a stately backdrop for writers’ imaginations. During the summer of 1933, while working as a cub reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Burroughs nearly suffocated from the heat in his tiny top-floor apartment.
B. DeBaliviere Place. A salacious cast of characters could always be found behind the unique architecture gracing the façades of this Central West End neighborhood’s buildings, as well as in the nearby pubs—sure inspiration for these writers’ many works.
C. Westminster Place. Now known as “The Writer’s Block,” this Central West End neighborhood includes the condo building now known as the Tennessee—formerly known as The Glass Menagerie Apartments—that inspired the setting for Williams’ play of the same name.
6. What invention did Nikola Tesla first demonstrate in St. Louis in 1893?
A. The Tesla coil. This extremely high-voltage device discharges electricity across a spark gap, resulting in dramatic “lightning” effects. Tesla’s St. Louis demonstration of the device nearly resulted in the death of Mayor William L. Ewing, who got his pants singed when he arrogantly stepped a bit closer to the device than was advisable.
B. The radio. Unfortunately, few took notice, and when Guglielmo Marconi demonstrated his parallel invention of the radio in Italy two years later, he was internationally celebrated for his achievement. An incensed Tesla took him to court and won, receiving his due credit for the invention.
C. A/C power. Thomas Edison, a proponent of D/C current, refused to allow his light bulbs to be used with Tesla’s A/C system, very nearly preventing the demonstration. But Westinghouse was able to provide a new light bulb design, allowing the demo to go forward. The 1904 World’s Fair made extensive use of this new technology.
7. South Broadway is home to the world’s oldest manufacturer of what product?
A. Aluminum foil. Alumax Foils, Inc. was established there in 1889 as the Tin Foil and Metal Company to provide packaging for the St. Louis tobacco market.
B. Plastic wrap. A St. Louis chemist with Dow Chemical developed this PVC cling film in 1953 while trying to make a hard plastic cover for his car.
C. Wax paper. In 1872, Thomas Edison invented an efficient method for creating large quantities of this coated paper. St. Louis’ Peistrup Paper began production soon thereafter.
Answers: 1.B., 2.B., 3.C., 4.A., 5.C., 6.B., 7.A.
