CHRISTMAS SHOPPERS CROWDING THE INTERSECTION AT 7TH AND LOCUST STREETS OUTSIDE FAMOUS-BARR'S DOWNTOWN STORE, NOVEMBER 25, 1960. Courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society.
On December 15, guests of the Missouri History Museum can grab drinks, color the walls, and take a stroll down memory lane as they learn about downtown holiday storefronts of the past at The Great Holiday Coloring Party, an installment of the Thursday Nights at the Museum series.
Each Thursday event begins with a happy hour and includes unique historical programming later in the evening. At The Great Holiday Coloring Party, visitors can enjoy food catered by Sugarfire Smokehouse and a hot chocolate bar before moving into the Museum’s Coloring STL exhibit.
“Coloring STL is all about the architectural treasures of St. Louis,” Missouri Historical Society community tours manager Amanda Clark says. “It’s really different from a normal exhibit, because the walls all feature large-scale drawings of different famous St. Louis buildings from the past and from now. We’ve provided dry erase markers so that [guests] can color in the buildings with a holiday theme.”
Alongside this hands-on activity, Clark will be presenting a retrospective on St. Louis’ iconic holiday storefronts. The mid-20th century was the heyday for extravagant window shopping, Clark says, and St. Louis stores were known to go all-out in a bid to attract customers. The department store Nugents hosted a popular Christmas photo booth, and many stores hired their own Santas for the holiday season. Even the local car dealerships constructed festive window scenes. Perhaps most celebrated for its decor, though, was the Famous-Barr Co. retail store.
CHRISTMAS WINDOW DISPLAY AT THE ARTHUR R. LINDBURG COMPANY AUTOMOBILE DEALERSHIP. Courtesy of the Missouri Historical Society.
“One of the stories I’m going to be sharing is a time when Famous-Barr had a live animal manger scene,” Clark says. “One night, a cow escaped from it, and while the store was closed the cow was roaming all over.”
Helen Weiss, the woman credited with many of Famous-Barr’s more extreme marketing strategies, recalled the same event in a 1985 interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “One night when a fire alarm was accidentally triggered, the panicked cow broke out of its stall and was found in the luggage department.” Another notable extravaganza at the store—also courtesy of Weiss—included a display of a partridge, two turtle doves, three French hens, and four calling birds.
Today, visions of a bustling downtown holiday shopping scene are mostly fond memories. But guests can travel back in time through Clark’s presentation, which will aim to capture a sense of nostalgia for Christmases past.
“The way we interact with stores is so different,” Clark says. “The people doing those windows, they really needed to capture a sense of wonder and awe and magic to bring people in.”
The Great Holiday Coloring Party is a free event. A full schedule for the event, which runs from 5:30-8 p.m. can be found at mohistory.org.
