History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 11

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men > Part 11

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" Mr. Lueas intends, we understand, this season to make an improvement which will add greatly to the value of tho prop- erty in that quarter, and increase the population west of the proposed improvement.

"We understand that he will open Twelfth Street, one hun- dred and forty or sixty feet wide, from Market to St. Charles Street, the breadth of five blocks. Fifty feet or so in the centre of the street will be reserved for a market-house which he will erect this season at his own cost, leaving a wide street on each side of the market."

1849 .- " The assessment of the real estate in the city of St. Louis for the year 1849, as appears from the assessor's books, is as follows :

Old Limits.

First Ward

$404,024.61 2,729,208.92

New Limits. $2,651,677.96 660,539.47 2,063,716.70

Total. $3,065,702.57 3,389,948.39 6,790,708.13

Third Ward.

4,726,991.43

1,516,578.44

5,552,062.27

Fourth Ward ... Fifth Ward.

4,035,483.83 1,192,470.69 323,388.66

2,075,483.15

3,267,953.84

Sixth Ward

6,995,988.62

7,319,377.28

$13,421,568.14 $15,963,984.34 $29,385,552.48

1850 .- " We have said that we reckon the buildings erected this year by the thousand. By reference to the published tables it will be seen that their number reaches two thousand four hundred and fifty. The money expended on their construction amounts to the sum of $7,173,155."

1851 .- "Large Sale of Land .- The large sale of land which ' has been going on for two days past in the ' Union Addition' to St. Louis, or ' Capitol Hill,' was closed yesterday. One hundred and sixty lots were sold, and the aggregate of the sales is $88,063.44. This addition is situated near the new reservoir of the city water-works, in the most elevated part of the city, and full two miles from the court-house.

"The Stoddard sale, conducted by Leffingwell & Elliott, was closed yesterday, the gross amount being $701,676. The whole traet is now disposed of, and we learn that many persons who had gone to the ground to bid failed to secure any lots. So great an amount of property has never been offered or sold in this city at one time, and the aggregate returns of purchasers evinee the confidence of strangers as well as our own citizens in the stability and prospects of our city."

1855 .- " The sale of the Centre Market property, owned by the city, took place yesterday, and was attended by a great number of persons. The whole property produced over $174,000."

It was about this period that the citizens of St. Louis began to turn their attention to suburban prop- erties and the construction of suburban villas and cottages. The country in the vicinity of the city has long been noted for its beauty and its adaptedness to the elegant ease of country-seats owned by the wealthy and the luxurious.

The whole territory environing St. Louis is very elevated, undulating gently and gracefully, in such manner that there is no road leading from the city which does not for many miles reveal an innumerable succession of beautiful building eminences. The

valleys which intervene, the vigorous and stately oak groves decking the hill-tops occasionally or lining the margin of chance brooks, the rich rolling meadows, the extensive and trim gardens, atoning by their careful cultivation and their freshness for the disorder of the gardener's hut attached to them, with here and there at rare intervals the elegant cottage and finely-embellished grounds of some wealthy merchant from the city,-all combine to make a picturesque and attractive landscape. An afternoon ride over the Bellefontaine road, the Caron- delet road, the Manchester road, or over Grand Avenue sustains the assumption that there is no city of the West, at any rate, whose suburbs reveal greater nat- ural beauties than those of St. Louis.

But until the periods referred to, these beauties had been lost upon the wealthy, since they had developed no fondness for suburban or country life. Now, however, this began, and elegant mansions and villas began to spring up about Compton Hill, Côte Brilliante, and the Carondelet road, and later along the railroads leading into the city.

About this time, also, the people began to take note of the pace at which real estate values were being accelerated, and to look upon holdings of city lots as about as rapid a means of getting rich as any one need cmploy. They recalled, for example, that

"in the year 1840, St. Louis, although a place of importance, evinced nothing foreshadowing her present prosperity. Manu- factories of all kinds were few, her mercantile operations limited, and real estate was held at merely a nominal figure. She was, in fact, dependent entirely upon other places for almost every article for home consumption. In 1836, only four years pre- vious to the time of which we speak, property was offered on the corner of Eighth and Pine Streets for ten dollars per foot, and could not be sold from the fact that every one regarded the price as enormously fictitious. The whole western part of the city, say from Eighth Street westwardly, was then a common, and few imagined that it would ever be used for anything else. In 1839 the eastern half of the block where the Planters' House is now was sold for the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars per foot. Every one regarded the purchaser as 'done for' in that speculation. The property would to-day (the year 1859) sell for fifteen hundred dollars per foot. The best property on Main Street would not sell for more than three hundred dollars prior to the great fire of 1849.

" In the years 1839 and 1840 property on Lueas Place could not have been sold for three dollars per foot, and a sale was ef- feeted by Messrs. Belt & Priest a few days since at the round sum of two hundred and fifty-one dollars per foot. But we are asked the question, How do you account for this rapid enhance- ment in the value of real estate ? Is it permanent, and will not this state of things terminate in total bankruptey if it continues ? They who propound such questions know little of the illimit- able and inexhaustible resources of our great city. St. Louis, although in its infaney, possesses the power of a giant. The history of the world fails to present a single example of a city growing to such greatness when fostered by its commercial posi- tion alone. It cannot be claimed that the country back of St.

Second Ward .....

1032

HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

Louis has aided her much, for by far the greatest portion of it is an unbroken wilderness.

" The maximum value of real estate in St. Louis has not been attained. There is to-day a larger margin for speculation and an inevitable certainty of a more rapid increase than there was ten or twenty years ago. We are gratified that Eastern capi- talists have become awake to this fact, and are investing largely in real estate in our city. We invite more capital ; there is room for immense amounts to be lucratively invested. We invite emi- gration ; we invite labor. Come one, come all, there is bread and work for us all."

And all this is just as true of 1883 as it was of 1859. The maximum value of real estate in St. Louis is still to be attained, and the increase to-day is more rapid than it was twenty-five years ago.

The civil war set things back a whole lustrum, but did not destroy nor even injure the roots of progress and development. These, indeed, seemed to strengthen and pierce deeper and take firmer grip of the soil during the period when they were prevented from sending shoots upwards. By 1870 all activities had been resumed, as the following record of building in that year shows :

Brick.

Frame.

Stone.

Iron.

Total.

January ...

$170,700

$1,200

.......

$171,900

February ...

495,900

5,500

March. .....

565,000

2,700

$90,000

501,400 657,700

April .......

604,775

10,600

$50,000

May.

46,496

13,500

June ....

.....

401,175 727,330

2,250

August.

346,434

100

September.

408,250

850

8,000

October .....

521,400

1,200

1,000

November.

217,625

625

10,000

523,600 228,350

December ..

130,000

.........

....

......

130,000

Total .... .. $4,636,085

$38,525

$133,000

$90,000

$4,887,710

...

55,000

665,375 59,996 456,175 729,580 346,534 417,100

Jnly

The total number of building permits granted during the year was 1228. From this amount there should be deducted 200 for small additions not properly classed as buildings. This leaves 1028 buildings. To this add 500 buildings erected aside from permits granted, and also including cases where permits cover more than one building, and there is an approximate number of buildings erected during the year of 1528. The total estimated building outlay was equivalent to $5,687,710, expended in buildings during the year.

Operations so extensive and so costly as this re- quired, of course, great economy in the regulation of expenditures and the selection of materials. Fortu- nately, St. Louis is very rich in cheap and handsome building materials of every sort. Nowhere can better lime, sand, and bricks be found, taken right out of the soil on which the city is built. As early as 1839, Samuel Head began to quarry and manufacture marble from a quarry under the city, as is recounted in the following letter from Mr. Garesché :

"On my arrival in this city, I was struck with the inarble appearance of the stone, but was unable to procure a person who understood polishing it; in the mean time, Mr. Samuel Head, a young man lately come to this place, whose business it was, worked this stone, and demonstrated to the inbabitants of St. Louis how useless it was to send to the eastward for mantel- picces or otber marble monuments when they were treading over a soil so rich in that species of mineral. This marble vies with the most beautiful for the fineness of its polish, nor are its variegated accidents or color inferior to any. It contains abun- dance of calcareous spar, and some, probably, oxide of iron, which sbows itself in scarlet spots of the most gaudy hue. This ledge, about four feet in thickness. stands between two strata of lime- stone. The undermost has been used to this day as a fine build- ing material. It is that of which our curbstones are made and our streets are macadamized. It receives also a very fine polish ; it is tben of a cream color, with light gray veins. Under this stratum is one of silex. Mr. Head has also discovered in the same quarry another kind of inarble of a nankeen hue, with black veins running through, pretty much in imitation of scales of a fish. The last specimen has, however, been found in but small detached pieces. There is scarcely any doubt when the subject is further investigated but what some new discoveries will be made. The banks of the river for some considerable distance appear to be of the same nature, and must contain the same or some other mineral wealth, which may become a source of profitable exportation to the community at large."

St. Louis possesses the advantage of being built in a location and upon ground where the best of bricks are easily attainable at low prices. It is worthy of note that the appearance presented by the walls of the many thousands of fine residences and business houses attracts the attention of every visitor to the city. To build up a city like St. Louis, almost entirely of brick, requires a large supply of suitable clay for their man- ufacture, but, as great as the draft has been, the supply is as yet comparatively untouched, and as demands are made and investigations prosecuted, the quality in- creases in value and importance, and foreign markets, that but a few years ago furnished clay for crucibles used in smelting furnaces, fire-brick, etc., now use that of St. Louis for their supplies, thereby acknowl- edging the superiority of the clay found in St. Louis over that of other sections. So important is this branch of trade becoming, that several firms ınake this traffic an especial business, and are almost daily filling orders for Cincinnati, Louisville, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and other large man- ufacturing cities in our own country, while orders have also come from Stourbridge, England, from whence clay used to be shipped to different cities of this country.

The manufacture of brick enters very largely into the active use of capital, and, like every other branch of industrial manufacture, has undergone many changes and has been attended with many improve- ments within the period of time that has passed since the St. Louis trading-post began to give way be-

1033

SAINT LOUIS AS A CENTRE OF TRADE.

fore the march of progress, and the manufacturers of the rude pieces of tempered earthen mortar they called brick-some of which may still be seen in some of the pioneer brick houses of St. Louis-would look with wonder upon the almost scientific nicety and difference in shape of the brick now made as com- pared with those they fashioned, if it were possible for them to be raised from their sleep of death and shown through some of the St. Louis brick-yards. But, notwithstanding the many different kinds of brick-making machines that have been invented, the old hand process seems to be regarded with a very great degree of partiality, as affording a better and more perfect brick for building purposes than any machine ever yet introduced, although some of the machines turn out an excellent quality. With ma- chinery, brick can be made much faster than by hand, but it is maintained by many builders and owners of houses that the rapidity with which they are made renders it impossible for them to be made perfect and solid in every respect, and particularly so with those made from dry clay. A smooth, even surface and solid formation are the qualities requisite to a good brick, and in many localities clay from which such bricks can be made is scarcely attainable. Its absence ac- counts for the rough, cracked, and almost shale-like appearance of many of the walls of brick houses to be seen in many sections of the country.

In some places it is impossible to find a clay that will not crack either in sun-drying or burning, how- ever well-tempered the mortar may have been, and instances have been known where kilns, in which a hundred thousand had been set, would not turn out more than twenty-five to fifty thousand merchantable brick. In such cases heavy pecuniary loss was un- avoidable, and hence the importance to brick-moulders of finding clay that would withstand the action of the sun when turned out in the yard to dry, or of the fire while kiln-burning. In the earlier times slop brick -that is, brick made by rolling the mortar in water and casting it in wet moulds-were more generally made than any other kind, but the difficulty of obtaining a smooth surface, a very desirable consideration, was a great objection to that style of brick, and it gradually gave way to other methods, as did also the old way of preparing the mortar by tramping it with horses, oxen, or even, in some instances, by men and horses. But these methods of brick-making gave way to sand brick. These are made by rolling the mortar in sand on the moulding-table and casting it into moulds, which are also well sanded by being dipped in a box of sand by the off-bearers after every turn- ing out on the yard. It is very justly maintained that

this process secures more smoothly-surfaced, nicely- cornered, and more solid brick than those moulded in slop or water, and that it also secures a brighter, better color in burning. This process of brick-mould- ing is universally followed by the different hand brick- yards of St. Louis.

White Brick .- A great part of this brick formerly uscd was brought from other sections, Milwau- kce, Wis., being the most noted place of the man- ufacture of that variety. Within the last twenty years, however, it has been satisfactorily settled that in St. Louis there is even a better quality of clay for their manufacture than that used at Milwaukee, and their manufacture has begun on a large scale. The bed of clay from which they are made is supposed to be inexhaustible.

This clay burns to a beautiful white, producing a brick every way equal to, and in certain respects su- perior to, those made at Milwaukee. Their color when properly made is lighter and more uniform, while the shrinkage is uniform, far more so than in the Milwaukee brick. From tests made by the engi- neers of the water-works and others, their tenacity is shown to be equal to any in government reports, sustaining flatways two thousand pounds on supports 'six inches apart with a fulcrum in the centre. Their manufacture was attempted before the late war, and about one hundred thousand made and burnt, but on account of the war the enterprise was abandoned until 1867. Pressed white brick, it is said, are much less expensive than stone fronts and look nearly as well, and it is therefore a source of con- gratulation that they are manufactured in St. Louis instead of imported from Milwaukee.

Fire-Clay .- The increase in the establishment of furnaces requiring the use of fire-brick, crucibles, retorts, etc., has necessarily increased the demand for these articles. In the earlier periods of the manufacturing interests of our country, clay for the manufacture of crucibles, retorts, etc., as well as some of the manufactured articles, were brought from Stourbridge, England, and Germany. The cost of either the clay or the manufactured article was a matter of no little moment, and hence the discovery of fire-clay in this country became a matter of con- gratulation to manufacturers, and as investigations and discoverics have been extended, beds of the purest and best of this material have been found, and now, instead of importing it either from Ger- many or England, it is exported. from America to all the manufacturing points of Europe; but while it is found in many sections of our country, none rank higher among manufacturers than that found at

1034

HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

Cheltenham and vicinity, four miles from St. Louis. The properties of the best pot- and fire-clay consists of the following percentage of component parts :

Silica. 64.05

Alumina

23.15

Oxide of iron

1.85

Carbonate of magnesia. .95

Water

10.00

100.00

An analysis of the Stourbridge clay (for a long period of years regarded as the most nearly perfect of any offered to the trade), made by Willis (see Watt's Dict. Chem., Eng. Ed., vol. ii. p. 653), showed the following proportion of ingredients :

Silica ...

67.34

Alumina ..

21.01

Oxide of iron

2.03

Alkalies.

1.38

Water

8.24

100.00

An analysis of the Cheltenham clay, by Profes- sor A. Litton, shows that it is much nearer a perfect article, taking the analysis of the best pot-clay, as submitted by Richardson, as authority, than that known as Homer's best pot-clay from Stourbridge, England. The analysis of both the crude and washed clay is as follows :

Crude Clay.

Silica ..

61.02

Alumina

25.64

Oxide of iron.

1.70

Lime ....

.70

Magnesia

.08

Potassa

.48

Soda ...

.25

Sulphur.

.45

Water

9,68

100.00

Washed Clay.

Silica

59.60

Alumina ..

26.41

Oxide of iron

1.61

Lime ...

1.00

Magnesia

.07

Potassa.

.29

Soda

.16

Sulphur

.38

Water.

10.48

100.00

Of the exact date of the finding of the clay at Chel- tenham we are not fully advised, but Paul M. Gratiot engaged in the manufacture of fire-brick in a small way as early as 1837-38. His works were situated on what is now known as the Glassby heirs' farm, on King's Highway, and near the residence of Hon. John S. McClure. Since then, however, the discovery of immense beds of the clay have been made, and several large fire-brick manufactories erected, employing a large capital and several hundred mechanics, laborers, etc.

No substance has ever been found anywhere that approaches the Cheltenham clay. This clay on being first brought to the surface and exposed to the light has an appearance similar to that of stone, but after being exposed to the weather for a few days it disin- tegrates and falls to pieces. One-third of the mate- rial thus unearthed is preserved from exposure to the weather, and this portion of it is burned or calcined, this process being necessary to the proper working up of the material. After being burned it is passed through a process of grinding or reduction from its large lumps to a certain degree of pulverization neces- sary to the manufacture of fire-brick or whatever else may be intended, and from the Iron Age we extract the following description of the process to which the clay is submitted. This description relates to other works, but embraces the same principles and ma- chinery as that used in St. Louis. It says,-

" Much care has to be exercised in the selection of the clay and its combinations in proper proportions. The brick are to resist the intense heat of the puddling furnace, the iron cupola, the locomotive and boiler grate, as well as the continuous heat in other places where the action of fire is to be resisted. The brick made directly from the clay is found to be too solid and too liable to fracture from the heat. To remedy this and secure a porous article the pure and best fire-clays are calcined, then it is taken and crushed by means of large iron rollers. By this process it is reduced to a mass of small particles ready for mix- ing with the pure clays. When the proper ingredients are thus combined, the mixture is put into a large box or vat and let soak about a day. Then it goes through the pug-mill, by which it is ground fine. It is then ready to be modeled into any of the required shapes, and they are legion. After this has been done the bricks are placed on the drying floor, where they remain from six to ten hours. They are then pressed, to give them their regular shape. After pressing they are again placed upon a drying floor, where they remain until dry enough to be set in the kilns for burning. The brick from the modelers will have to be handled five times before they are ready for use. The two defects that have herctofore existed in pressing blocks flatwise and by hand are said to be, Ist, the blocks were not pressed hard enough; 2d, they came out of the mould of an nn- even thickness. To remedy these evils machinery has been in- vented within a few ycars for pressing the blocks edgewise, 80 that they come out fully pressed and with a perfect uniform thickness. This make of blocks, therefore, has the advantage that they require no chipping or dressing in laying them up. This saves a great amount of labor in lining or relining furnaces. It also makes a much better job than when laid with uncven blocks.

"Next comes the baking process. Here the round kilns are used, which is the form preferred by the English and other foreign makers. These improved, circular, high-coned kilns are fired with anthracite coal, and have a large number of fire- chambers around, and the heat is drawn to the centre of the kiln. This arrangement makes the heat equal throughout the whole kiln, burning top and bottom brick alike. Between the fire-chambers and the bricks, after they are set in the kiln, are protection-walls that prevent the heat from striking them, carry it up to the top of the kiln, and then down through its centre, enabling it to escape through a flue or pipe leading

1035

SAINT LOUIS AS A CENTRE OF TRADE.

from the bottom underground to the smokestack of the manu- facturing machinery. It makes heat fast and very intense, burning all the brick thoroughly and equally. Thirty-six hours of full heat are generally required to burn the briek, and about twenty-four hours are required to attain this heat. The time required for cooling, of course, varies with the season.

" A large number of the fire-bricks manufactured here are sent to the manufacturing establishments of the Lake Superior regions, while a great many are shipped to the South, and almost all other points where manufactories requiring intense heating apparatuscs are established ; and so superior are the manufac- tures of the St. Louis and Cheltenham works that wherever they have been introduced they have been awarded the pre- mium, both as to the quality of the elay and superiority of manufacture. The clay is becoming an article of commerce in itself, and is sought after from the various manufacturing cities of our own country, while some orders have come from Europe. One or two firms exist in this city that engage exclusively in its traffic. It is usually put up in barrels, and is worth in this market sixteen dollars per ton. Fire-bricks mnade at the Chel- tenham and Oak Hill Works have been submitted to the severest tests known to the business, and pronounced by experienced men to be of the very best quality. For retorts and crucibles, and everything else designed to be exposed to the action of a great heat, the fire-clay found in St. Louis County is unsur- passed, and is a source of wealth little dreamed of by the pio- neer settlers of this part of the Mississippi valley. As yet it is not fully developed or worked to any extent by other than the establishments already named; but it is not saying too much to predict that the time is not far in the future when the estab- lishments to be built up here to shape and convert into articles of usefulness will be equal to those of any part of the Old World, to which America looked for many years for her supply of clay for erucibles, retorts, etc., and thus add millions of money to our home capital, and increase our population by thousands."

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 11

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358