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Tillie's Corner, before the collapse, documented by the application for National Register of Historic Places
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Though the National Register Listing is no longer possible, these excerpts from the application point to the historical importance of Tillie's Corner, and why, even though the buildings no longer stand (they were demolished January 23, 2013) it is important to remember the stories of St. Louisians like Lillie Pearson.
*NOTE: These excerpts, taken from the text of the National Historic Register Nomination, were researched and drafted by students from Washington University in St. Louis (Emily Averna, Patricia Bailey, Caleb Bess, Matthew Booe, Kelly Bunch, Elizabeth Crowell, Christian Frommelt, Rachel Howard, Angela Kress, Lisa Niemiec, Laura Olivier, Ellen Park, Karen Perille, Michael Rauch, Allison Reed, Johanna Rudnick, Blair Sackett, Mariam Shahsavarani, Joshua Truppman, Daphne Washington), and Dr. Sonia Lee.
Tillie’s Corner, located at 1351 and 1353 N. Garrison in St. Louis [Independent City], Missouri is locally significant under National Register Criteria A in the areas of Ethnic Heritage/Black, and Commerce. The property is located in the heart of the Jeff-VanderLou neighborhood, an area that was historically “unrestricted” by private real estate covenants that dictated where African Americans could live and buy property prior to 1948. As such, the area grew to be one of the most populous Black neighborhoods in the city by 1940. This well-established Black neighborhood attracted Lillie V. Pearson who opened her business in 1948 and purchased both townhouses by 1965 in what would become known as Tillie’s Corner. The two 1870s townhouses each had early twentieth century, one-story storefront additions. As an African American woman, well known as Miss Tillie, successfully operated Tillie’s Food Shop and neighboring rental property from 1948 to 1988, despite challenges that came with segregation in the early years of the business and urban depopulation in later years. The contributions Pearson made as a business woman and informal activist within her community demonstrate a rarely studied aspect within post-World War II African American history: the role of small business leaders in building social cohesion of African American communities. The period of significance of the property is the span of Pearson’s operation of Tillie’s Food Shop (1948-1988). The property meets the Criterion Consideration G as it continued to achieve significance into a period less than fifty years before its nomination. The history and significance of the property is closely tied to the larger neighborhood from its rise as an African American community in the late 1930s, the peak of community cohesion and activism in the 1960s and its ultimate decline due to crime and disinvestment in the 1970s and 1980s. Pearson was not a typical “Civil Rights” leader nor was she a typical “business” leader. She did not lead any protests or marches, nor could the success of her business compare with earlier African American businesswomen in St. Louis such as beauty product magnate Annie Malone and her Poro College. Yet, the longevity of her small business during the long and arduous years of urban decline highlight what was remarkable within the lives of so many ordinary Americans: the will to build and improve communities around them, not only by fighting for civil rights in the courts and the streets, but also by serving the needs of their communities through small business and informal activism.
Lillie Pearson purchased the business at 1351 N. Garrison in 1948 (early in 1949 she made the final payment on that purchase) and bought the building in 1951 when she moved her family into the first floor and basement of the townhouse behind the store. For additional revenue she rented rooms on the second and third floors. Within a few years, she modernized her storefront, replacing the worn out wood framed display windows and doorway with a brick front with picture windows flanking the new door. Shortly thereafter, she painted the interior a bright blue and then, in 1979 when she had to make repairs to the store, she repainted the interior a bright pink, a memorable color for the neighborhood children. Although the exact date of the storefront alteration has not been confirmed, it probably occurred around 1957 since the 1955-1957 family photographs clearly show the old storefront still intact (see Figures 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17) and Robenia Harris, a long-time neighbor, moved into the neighborhood by late1957 when the storefront had its current appearance.
By 1965, Pearson had saved enough to purchase the townhouse at 1353 N. Garrison. John Cox had operated a “clothes cleaners” there in 1952-1955, but by 1956, the storefront of that townhouse became a church, initially as the Mt. Joy Missionary Baptist Church, then in 1961 as the Church of God in Christ, then in 1965 as the New St. Peter’s Rock Missionary Baptist Church. With the purchase of this property, she acquired the detached garage facing Sheridan, which was built in 1953. At the time she acquired the property, the storefront was already being used as a church (with residential tenants upstairs) and the garage was the church kitchen. After 1968 the directories failed to list the business tenants, or
mistakenly identified residents in the townhouse as tenants in the storefront. Margaret Toms, Lillie
Pearson’s daughter, and her family are listed in the storefront in 1972, but they actually lived upstairs for several years (according to Pearson’s family) and it was at that same time that Lille Pearson’s son, Robert, started doing television repairs out of the storefront, although his television repair shop was only listed in the 1975 directory. By the early 1980s, this townhouse was being used as storage downstairs.
The two townhouses became part of what one grandchild, Lemar Dace, remembered as a “kingdom.” There she conducted business and raised her extended family (who were frequently recruited to help with the business and delivery of meals to the tenants). It was a place where her children and grandchildren could run and safely play. Throughout her tenure in the neighborhood, Lillie Pearson not only operated the small grocery store at 1351 N. Garrison, she also managed rental apartments where she would provide meals for the tenants, who were often elderly and/or on a restricted income and needed help. Pearson always had rooms on the second and third floors of her own townhouse at 1351 for at least two tenants. In 1973, Pearson took in Alma Chandler and her two children who at that time needed a place to live. Pearson let her live upstairs and fed her and her two children. Pearson operated the townhouse at 1353 as a rental property, but for minimal rent, usually for three older tenants for whom she would provide meals. Carla Pearson Alexander, her granddaughter can remember three of these tenants from her childhood, Leatha Claiborn, Arthur Harvey and James Pruitt.
The majority of evidence indicates that Tillie’s was a representative small black-owned business in the Jeff-VanderLou neighborhood. Like other businesses in the area, it thrived from 1948 to 1988. Tillie’s Food Shop provides insight into how those small businesses in Jeff-VanderLou operated day-to-day.
Taken as a whole, Pearson’s story and the built environment in which it unfolded can be taken as a vernacular structure for the lives of the African American working-class of the time. A “vernacular structure” is defined as an “historic place that can teach us important things about the past without necessarily having links to historical events on the grand scale. … the kinds of places that teach us significant things about the social and cultural history of other periods, including their patterns of everyday life.” The National Register itself is beginning to recognize the importance of vernacular structures in general, and those reflecting African-American day-to-day lives in particular. In 2005, the National Park Service provided funding to conduct an assessment of the NHL’s (National Historic Landmarks) nomination efforts in African American history. African American Economics and Commerce was one of the themes requiring a significant improvement in documentation and nomination efforts:
...the existing NHLs provide only a small sampling of black business and commercial activity in the United States and…very few NHLs commemorated the history of African American craftsmanship or labor. The Scholars Meeting criticized the absence of NHLs that represent the larger history of collective black enterprises…and the existence of black business districts.
Along with the desire to improve NHL representations of black business, the Assessment recommended additional themes in African American history to target in the future. Among the ten themes recommended, they strongly encouraged further research in Grassroots and Vernacular History:
...existing NHLs…provide broad representation of notable African American leaders and major events in African American history…However...the most striking feature of African Americans’ profound impact on American society has been through the ordinary experiences of their daily lives….the NHL Program nomination efforts should capture the national significance of “ordinary lived experiences.”
This suggestion creates a space for recognizing the significance of buildings like Tillie’s--by representing the everyday, vernacular structures that bring out the everyday aspects of African American life that had “the most profound impact” on American culture.
Tillie’s Food Shop represents the most ideal structure to be preserved in St. Louis, given its historical significance. There are likely many other buildings in the city that belonged to former black-owned black businesses and that are still standing. Within our seventeen blocks of research, we identified thirteen buildings that are still standing and ten of the thirteen buildings could have belonged to a black business owner. Yet, none of these buildings have the broad-based advocacy that Tillie’s Corner has garnered. Students from Washington University in St. Louis, along with Pearson’s granddaughter Carla Alexander and her husband Miguel Alexander have conducted a remarkable amount of research. They have also created public support for Tillie’s Corner by being featured in articles in St. Louis American, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington University’s Record and St. Louis Public Radio. There is not much time to wait. As physical structure of Tillie’s Food Shop continues to disintegrate, the political will to preserve such a memory may vanish as well.
