In 19th-century America, St. Louis’ cast-iron building manufacturing rivaled New York City

Over the weekend, the History Channel ran a marathon on the history of mass-produced food in America. Heinz, Hershey, Kellogg’s, and Birdseye all received adulatory surveys of how the “democratized” production of food moved from the backyard of American homes to factories located far from the consumer, shipped by railroad to the dinner table. Of course, over the last several decades, American cuisine has seen a shift away from these massive corporate icons such as Heinz Ketchup with the “farm-to-table” movement, with its own emphasis on the democratization of food. 

But while the production of food was being commodified around America in the 19th century, right here in St. Louis, companies were seeking to spread architectural design to everyday people with the mass production of cast-iron building fronts. I visited Larry Giles, director at the Building Arts Foundation, to view its collection of cast-iron storefront elements, as well as a rare product catalogue published by one of the earliest cast-iron manufacturers in St. Louis, the Pullis Brothers, also known as the Mississippi Iron Works and Foundry. Giles set St. Louis right in the middle of America’s cast-iron industry: “The only city to really compare it to would be New York City.”

Like many other products that gained nationwide distribution, such as beer and shoes, numerous companies once called St. Louis home. And like many advances in 19th-century America, they were designed to provide a product for less expense than traditional materials. Used primarily for storefronts, cast-iron building materials are deceptive; they look massive and substantial, but they are relatively thin, pressed into shape by stamping or cast in molds. Consequently, they are both relatively light and easily stacked for storage and transport. Just like Sears-Roebucks’ catalogue, the Pullis Bros. catalogue showed examples of the storefronts that could be ordered and shipped via the extensive railroad networks radiating out from St. Louis. 

“St. Louis shipped more architectural iron out of the city than was used here,” Giles told me as we leafed through the Pullis Bros. catalogue. A book on St. Louis industry boasted of the firm, founded in 1839 and located at 206-8 N. 6th Street, and its vast array of products outside of cast iron storefronts:

“They manufacture iron fronts, window caps and sills, cast iron plumbers’ ware, enameled grates, iron and slate mantels, jail work, bank vaults, commercial safe fronts, doors and shutters in one hundred styles, verandahs, chairs, settees and vases, ornamental iron goods, iron bedsteads, store stools, fountains and aquariums, registers and ventilators, bolts, anchors and straps, sash weights, weather vanes, zinc centerpieces, enameled tiles, brass fire stands and fenders, and all kinds of cast and wrought iron work used in the erection of public and private buildings.”

Due to the dissemination of the cast-iron storefronts, Main Streets in small towns in wide swaths of the Midwest share a similar distinct style. A large deposit of iron ore, located south of St. Louis in the Ozarks, brought up by the Iron Mountain Railroad as pig iron, also kept the raw materials flowing up to the city, keeping costs down and further catalyzing the industry.

The easy mass production of fanciful and highly ornate detailing in architectural ornament in lightweight materials arrived at just the right moment in American history, as well. While the Neoclassical and Greek Revival styles could make use of cast iron elements, the Italianate and Second Empire styles, with their elaborate and ostentatious ornament arriving during the Victorian Period, seemed to better embrace the abilities of metal. For example, we see elaborate Corinthian capitals not carved from a block of marble, but rather assembled from pieces of individual leaves and miniature volutes. In fact, the column underneath that capital is not necessarily solid, but hollow, but still bearing immense weight as cast iron can, providing a frame for large plate glass windows for merchants to display their products. And besides the Pullis Brothers, numerous St. Louis companies could provide their own individual variation.

Two brothers, Bernard and Frank Mesker operated the Mesker Brothers Iron Works in downtown St. Louis in competition to their third brother, George, who owned similar company in Evansville, Indiana. Interestingly, Giles believes the Mesker Brothers largely “repackaged” other firms’ products, simply placing their own nameplates on cast-iron products before marketing them around the Midwest.

For Giles, another firm bears mentioning, if for the simple fact that they were not the best at their own self-promotion. While anyone can usually look down to see the manufacturer’s trademark logo on cast-iron storefronts, the firm of Shickle, Harris & Howard neglected to put their name on their products. Giles explains, “I read somewhere in a contemporary journal that they did a lot more work than you would think but they never signed anything.”

Christopher & Simpson was another major firm, with their products disseminating out from their factory in St. Louis. In fact, there were numerous other companies that operated in St. Louis. Many were located just south of downtown, where there are largely vacant lots and onramps onto the elevated lanes of Highway 40 west of the Poplar Street Bridge. However, there are still thousands of buildings surviving in St. Louis and throughout the United States that contain ornamental cast iron fronts made right here in the Gateway City. Giles and the Building Arts Foundation are planning a more complete examination of this building material in the near future.

St. Louis architecture began to move on from a heavy reliance on cast-iron decorative elements by the end of the 19th century. While decorative terra-cotta has a long and storied history going back to the ancient world, I feel that the rich tradition started in cast iron began to translate into clay in St. Louis, and we see its beautiful results in the built environment of neighborhoods such as Dutchtown or St. Louis Hills. The creativity in iron evolved into creativity in terra-cotta.