Courtesy of the Missouri History Museum
African-American soldiers in front of the Pine Street YMCA during World War II
Church on Sunday was not the only place African Americans built community in the Mill Creek Valley in the early 20th century. Although most of the heavy-hitting institutions that ran the economy of the city were located downtown, they were closed to the vast majority of the residents of the segregated Mill Creek area west of Union Station. Consequently, the streets around Jefferson Avenue and its cross streets, Market and Pine, held a small city all its own, with fraternal organizations, a hospital, and even financial institutions for the 20,000 African Americans living nearby. While many of the 40-plus churches demolished by urban renewal (see last week’s post) either moved or consolidated, many of the secular organizations mentioned below simply ceased to exist after the 1960s.
Courtesy of the Missouri History Museum
City Hospital No. 2, at 2945 Lawton Avenue, in 1920
Located at the northeast corner of Lawton and Garrison avenues, City Hospital No. 2 served African Americans, who were often denied access to other hospitals in the city. Like many other structures in the Mill Creek area, the hospital building had begun its life decades earlier when the majority of the neighborhood’s residents were white. City Hospital No. 2 was originally the (now largely forgotten) Barnes Medical College, named after the famous philanthropist and founder of Barnes Hospital but not in any way affiliated with him. The medical college never really succeeded; it folded after a short time, then became a hotel, then Centenary Hospital. In 1918, City Hospital No. 2 was founded and took over the building, with Dr. Roscoe Haskell as the first superintendent. The hospital officially opened on January 1, 1919, with 500 beds, 16 “internes,” and 56 nurses.
The political establishment was content with keeping African Americans out of most of the city and hospitals, but it was happy to intrude into the operation of the hospital. In a November 3, 1925, St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, Haskell accused the Republican Party establishment of terminating his employment because of his vote in the recent election and replacing him with Dr. Omar Perdue.
Though the City Hospital No. 2 building was demolished during urban renewal, the African-American medical community had already invested, back in 1937, in the stunning and state-of-the-art Homer G. Phillips Hospital in the Ville neighborhood, another nexus of their community. Ultimately vindicated, Haskell became the first superintendent of Homer G. Phillips.
Courtesy of the Missouri History Museum
Detail of a 1920s advertisement for People's Finance Corporation, taken from a history of Central Baptist Church by George E. Stevens
Founded in the Pine Street YMCA in Mill Creek, the People’s Finance Corporation Building at the northwest corner of Jefferson and Market housed several different institutions for the African-American community. Interestingly, St. Louis was the pioneer of banking for African Americans, and the Globe-Democrat featured in 1928 a full-page article about how the Corporation inspired similar banks around the country, including Kansas City, Chicago and New York. The building opened in 1926, and the article states that it was the only “modern building” in the country financed, constructed and occupied by African Americans. It was valued at $400,000 and had 91 offices, seven storefronts, and, it was estimated, between 3,000 and 4,000 visitors a day. The St. Louis American originally had its offices in the building as well.
Nearby, The True Reformers were part of a national organization that met regularly at their hall at Pine Street and Jefferson Avenue. Delegates from the local chapter also traveled to conventions, known as “grand fountains.” At one, reported in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in 1906, they discussed creating a bank for African Americans. The True Reformers boasted 3,000 members and real estate ownership valued at $50,000. Unfortunately, no record of the bank being founded appears in newspapers after 1906, and in 1912, the Globe-Democrat reported that the building, which was formerly a hospital, was sold in foreclosure. It became a factory building.
In its glory days, however, the True Reformers Hall even hosted the reformers’ version of the Veiled Prophet Ball, this one for African Americans. The St. Louis Palladium newspaper reported on September 30, 1907, that the “Prophet Abdul Menelik ben-Hassin” appeared with his “Queen of the East” in the annual visitation of the African prophet. There were prizes: $5 for the gold medal and $3 for the silver. John B. Vashon, the famous African American educator, was the secretary of the organization; Vashon High School was named after him and his father.
Another neighborhood institution was the Jefferson Club at 2639 Lawton Avenue, which the Globe-Democrat reported was the subject of a police raid down the street from City Hospital No. 2. Five individuals at the address had been operating a “policy game,” which is basically an illegal lottery, on the premises, and the City was cracking down on this illicit form of entertainment. (Another establishment was raided at the same time on Morgan Street.)
Desegregation was supposed to eliminate the need for these separate African-American institutions. Instead, the Jefferson Bank and Trust Company at the edge of the former Mill Creek Valley became the center of one of the most famous civil rights demonstrations in St. Louis history. Just north of where the Green Book reported a row of hotels on Jefferson serving African Americans, the bank sat at the intersection of Jefferson with Washington Avenue, on the former site of the Coliseum and Uhrig’s Cave. From late 1964 into early 1965, daily protests demanded the hiring of more African Americans. New leaders emerged from the successful protests, and their efforts serve as a coda for the Mill Creek Valley, which was being demolished just to the south.
Read also: “Searching for a lost St. Louis in the pages of the Green Book”
