1 of 4
Photograph by Chris Naffziger
Oak Grove Mausoleum, 7800 St Charles Rock Road
2 of 4
Photograph by Chris Naffziger
Lake Charles Cemetery, 7775 St. Charles Rock Road
3 of 4
Photograph by Chris Naffziger
Valhalla Cemetery, 7600 St. Charles Rock Road
4 of 4
Photograph by Chris Naffziger
Advertisement for Valhalla Cemetery
Since the infamous cholera epidemic of 1849, St. Louis has had a tense relationship with the dead. Early residents believed, most likely erroneously, that the corpses of cholera victims were spreading the disease to the living above ground and across the street from graveyards. In response to those fears, cemeteries in the St. Louis region sprang up along the major arteries heading out of the urban core. Ironically, one by one, the city swallowed up each of these once-rural necropolises. In the early 20th century, St. Charles Rock Road saw the opening of several new cemeteries just east of what is now Interstate 170; the founders hoped to capitalize on the public’s continued desire for a peaceful final resting place.
These new family-run endeavors offered something their older competitors could not: brand-new facilities that reflected the changing tastes and technology in burying the dead. While 19th-century cemeteries such as Bellefontaine and Calvary feature individual and family burial plots in a park-like setting, many of the new businesses introduced large, state-of-the-art mausoleums that could house thousands of interments. As one young upstart remarked in its promotional materials, families could have the comfort of knowing that their loved ones would not lie buried for eternity in a forgotten, overgrown graveyard.
The first of this new generation of cemeteries opened in 1911. As can be seen from an advertisement in the Yellow Pages, Valhalla branded itself “The Cemetery Beautiful,” a clear reference to the City Beautiful Movement, which sought to correct the social ills of the crowded 19th-century American city through urban planning and architecture. Appropriately named for a city with a strong Germanic heritage, the name evokes the home of fallen warriors in Norse mythology. While St. Louis’s Valhalla is not ruled over by Odin, it does contain a giant mausoleum befitting of the mythical hall on Mount Asgard. Bronze statues of Viking warriors flank the entrance to the communal tomb, opened in 1917 according to the designs of Sidney Lovell. It would almost seem appropriate to spot a Valkyrie or two on the grounds, as they were the goddesses who chose which warriors would die on the battlefield.
The Beaux-Arts movement in architecture further influenced the shift away from rustic designs to more formal, organized plans in the early 1900s. Lake Charles Park Cemetery, founded in 1922 down the road from Valhalla, crowned its entrance with an august, Ancient Greek-inspired gateway designed by Gabriel Ferrand. The French-born architect, who was a member of the Washington University School of Architecture faculty, also produced the plans for the United Hebrew Temple on Skinker (which now houses the library of the Missouri Historical Society). Ferrand would eventually return to France, where upstart Modernist architects were already challenging the Beaux-Arts style. But the massive gate, with the cemetery’s offices efficiently tucked within, still proudly stands guard.
Finally, at the top of the hill heading west stands the massive Oak Grove Mausoleum, on the grounds of the cemetery of the same name. The massive tomb was designed by Tom Barnett, the famous St. Louis architect, in tandem with Sidney Lovell. The first central, domed section opened in 1928; a series of additions continued until 1971. A mix of numerous architectural styles, the building stretches for an eighth of a mile, and houses thousands of crypts. Barnett modeled the mausoleum’s giant central dome on the exterior and interior of the Pantheons in Rome and Paris, respectively. The entrance portal’s design, with its three bronze figures and stunning gilded mosaics, harkens back to Michelangelo’s New Sacristy in Florence, Italy.
At the time of its construction, the mausoleum served the most important residents of St. Louis; its marble-lined halls count former St. Louis Mayor Henry Kiel as a resident. But just as the Rock Road institutions confidently prophesied a new age in cemetery design a century ago, times are now changing again. Oak Grove Mausoleum joined Missouri Preservation’s Most Endangered List in 2011; deferred maintenance and vandalism are now threatening its future. Likewise, an increasingly mobile and cost-conscious American public is turning away from expensive burials, opting for cremation instead. Will the proud and once innovative cemeteries along St. Charles Rock Road and across the nation learn to adapt in time?
Chris Naffziger writes about architecture at St. Louis Patina. Contact him via e-mail at naffziger@gmail.com.
