One of the relics of the incomplete interstate highway system was finally demolished this past year. As the construction of the new soccer stadium begins in Downtown West, the remnants of the never-built Highway 755, which I wrote about in December of 2018, have been swept away. But it turns out there were even more plans for expressways in St. Louis that were never built. The plans date to September of 1951, contained in a report commissioned in the wake of the census that saw St. Louis at its great population. City leaders and planners had ideas on how to reach 900,000 residents by 1970.
The solution, published in a report titled “Expressway Plan for St. Louis and Adjacent Missouri Area” and written by Malcolm Elliott of the St. Louis Urban Area Expressway Project, proposed three expressways that would radiate out from the central business district. They would use some of the already-built “proto-highways” created in the early decades of the 20th century. The plan was issued in conjunction with multiple federal, state, and local entities including the United States Bureau of Public Roads, Department of Commerce, Missouri State Highway Commission, and City of St. Louis. In a letter included in the report to the Chairman of the Missouri Highway Commission, then-Mayor Joseph Darst stated the three proposed radial expressways would cost $158,580,000.
Perhaps what is most interesting—and shocking—about the proposals for the three expressways in 1951 is how different the final interstate highways built in St. Louis ended up, and how the portions of primitive highways already built would fit awkwardly into the new plan. The Red Feather Express Highway, which is now Highway 40/Interstate 64 on the south side of Forest Park, had already opened in 1937, offering an absurdly short piece of expressway in the central corridor of the city. In the Near Southside, the Third Street Highway, which is now Interstate 44/55 south of the Poplar Street Bridge, whisked commuters from the Eads Bridge to Gravois Avenue, while crashing through historic neighborhoods dating to before the Civil War. (Look at the piers below the interstate today, and its older pedigree is revealed in the mismatched bridge piers.)
The solution was to double down on the Third Street Highway and continue south, creating the Ozark Expressway, which is now Interstate 55. While the later interstate highway plan would call for a cloverleaf east of Lafayette Square, allowing for the construction of 755 north around the west side of Downtown, and more importantly, the beginning of Interstate 44 to the west, no such plans were called for in 1951. In fact, the Southside was saved from the existence of Interstate 44 completely. Imagine a world where none of the south side of Lafayette Square, none of Compton Heights, and none of the north part of The Hill were destroyed by interstate highways. Interestingly, while today the story of the salvation of the Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion from the “original” route of the Ozark Expressway is well known in preservation circles, the 1951 plan has the highway going far to the west, destroying much of what is now the heart of the revitalized Benton Park neighborhood.
The truly bizarre aspect of the Ozark Expressway in 1951 consisted of the Gravois Stub, which would have cut over through Dutchtown, annihilating a huge swath of the neighborhood while heading west away from the Mississippi River, crossing Grand Boulevard and passing through Concordia Cemetery before linking up with Gravois Avenue near Bevo Mill. One can assume the relatives of loved ones buried in the cemetery are happy this idea was abandoned at some point.
Meanwhile, to the north, the Third Street Expressway would be extended into the new Mark Twain Expressway, following the path of what would largely become today’s Interstate 70. Of the three highways, this one remained largely the same as what would eventually be built. Interestingly, the report mentions the possibility of a Mississippi River bridge near Cass Avenue, which would eventually be built approximately 80 years later.
This contrasts with the dramatically different plan for the western expressway that would enter the Central Business District in not just one, but two prongs to the north along Franklin (today’s Martin Luther King Dr.) Avenue, and to the south along Clark Avenue, for double the destruction and disruption of the urban fabric of the city. Interestingly, the two prongs would not connect with the Ozark or Mark Twain expressways, instead ending to the west of the heart of downtown. There would also be a connection from the Franklin Avenue branch to Market Street, which at the time was one of the most congested streets in the city.
Instead of following the modern route of Highway 40 south of Forest Park, the plan instead called for the expressway to then take the route of Forest Park Parkway, and then would connect with an S-shaped loop to the Daniel Boone Expressway west of today’s Galleria Mall.
The report stated if these expressways were not built, there would be gridlock in the city. The solution, of course, would be to make commutes to downtown St. Louis faster. But the report itself shows that commutes to the central city were already comparable to today’s commute times, without the construction of interstates. The fearmongering of gridlock is summed up in a photograph in the report that shows a desolate Delmar Boulevard at “rush hour,” with perhaps only 20 cars in view for a three-mile stretch west of Kingshighway.
The map showing commute times demonstrates that a motorist could reach Walnut Park in North St. Louis from downtown in 10 minutes on the Mark Twain Expressway. But what is glaringly obvious is that if that motorist drove just another couple of minutes, they would be in Jennings—in St. Louis County. And that is exactly what hundreds of thousands of St. Louisans did: They kept on driving past their old neighborhoods to the new communities beyond the city limits, taking their tax dollars with them.
