Stand under a shady tree in Forest Park, close your eyes, and imagine the contented lowing, chomping, and lip-smacks of 900 cows as they graze the meadowland around you. Joseph Charless Cabanne wanted St. Louisans to have pure and wholesome milk in the city. He started dairy farming at the age of 19, and by age 33 was running his own operation in what’s now Forest Park, with offices on Pine. Cabanne introduced ironclad milk cans, separator cream, parchment paper for wrapping butter…
Joseph’s son, John P. Cabanne, became vice president of the dairy—but he also kept busy golfing and hunting and held memberships in Glen Echo Country Club, the Missouri Athletic Club, and the Racquet Club.
He’d been named for his far more industrious great-grandfather, Jean Pierre Cabanne. Born in the south of France, Jean Pierre came to St. Louis in 1805, first hanging with John Jacob Astor and later with Pierre Chouteau Jr. They dealt well with the Osage and made a ton of money in the fur trade. In 1819, after marrying Julie Gratiot, Jean Pierre built the first farmhouse west of the Mississippi River, on land that would eventually be grazed by his grandson’s cows. With eight children underfoot, he helped organize the Bank of St. Louis, anchor the first public school board and incorporate the city.
The Second Empire house near Union Avenue is an elegant tribute to that plain farmhouse. Part of Forest Park’s first master plan, Cabanne House was completed in 1876, just in time for the park’s dedication.
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