USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > The story of a great city in a nutshell : 500 facts about St. Louis > Part 4
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THE SINEWS OF TRADE.
Side Bank, $200,000 ; German-American Bank, $150,- 000; Lafayette Bank, $100,000; Jefferson Bank, $100,000; Southern Commercial and Savings Bank, $100,000; Bremen Bank, $100,000. The total de- posits of these nineteen establishments in 1900 aggre- gated $120,947,932.
The capital and surplus of the eight trust companies in St. Louis are as follows :
Capital.
Surplus.
Mississippi Valley Trust Company .... $ 3,000,000
$ 3,500,000
St. Louis Trust Company
3,000,000
2,000,000
Union Trust Company.
2,000,000
3.000,000
Commonwealth Trust Company
1.000,000
1,000,000 .
Mercantile Trust Company.
1,500,000
2,000,000
Lincoln Trust Company
1.000,000
400.000
Title Guarantee Trust Company.
1.500,000
750,000
Missouri Trust Company
2,000,000
Total
$15,000,000
$12,650,000
The business community of St. Louis owes much to these trust companies. At a critical juncture in the city's financial history, they served as the anchors to which the money solidity and integrity of the whole municipality were chained.
The development of the trust feature in the financial affairs of St. Louis has been such as to attract the at- tention of the world. Every one of these giant con- cerns is firmly founded, and the conservatism that guides their affairs is of a piece with the financial history of the city. This conservatism is in no wise old fogyism. Thoroughly up to date, and bold with the assurance of absolute solidity, not a one of the great concerns would hesitate to finance any enterprise of a
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legitimate character, if sound business sense showed a probability of success. The officers of all these institu- tions are men whose names mean millions of money, and whose integrity is beyond question. Experts in their several departments of the science of finance, these men have records almost as well known in the business centers on the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific as they are at home, and even in the great cities of the Old World. The oldest of these institutions is the St. Louis Trust Company, organized in 1889. Then comes the Mississippi Valley and the Union, both of which began business in 1890. These all prospered, and four years later the Lincoln Trust Company was launched. The Mercantile Trust Company entered the field still later, and only recently the Missouri Trust Company came here from Sedalia, seeking a broader field. Following the financial fashion, the Commonwealth and the Title Guarantee appeared. That these new concerns, all of them with seasoned financiers at the helm, found plenty of business without in the least hurting the older insti- tutions, shows what a fruitful field was waiting to be harvested. The transactions of most of these trust companies take a wide range, covering almost every branch of finance, from savings banks for wage earners to promoters and underwriters for vast enterprises re- quiring millions to manage. With their trust, legal, savings, loan, guarantee, real estate and other depart- ments, each may be said to be a monetary world in itself.
IN TOUCH
WITH THE WORLD.
D ECADES ago, before the rush and clang of steam engines, great caravans of wagons and mules, threading the untrammelled prairies and forests of the continent in their search for the Western El Do- rado, found St. Louis the most important point in their itinerary. It was here that the great wagon trains of the voyageurs were organized, the teamsters engaged and the supply stores gathered. Emigrants, com- mencing the long journey from points further East, found St. Louis the depot where final preparations must be made for the plunge into the wilds of the Great Further West.
And as the wealth of the products of wood and plain, floating down the tawny bosom of the Mississippi to the Gulf, grew in volume and value, St. Louis came to be the entrepot not only for the river trade North and South, but for the overland commerce East and West as well. Geography made St. Louis a natural center of transpor- tation and trade ; and the readiness of the hardy fron-
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tiersman to discover convenience of place and travel accentuated the importance of the Mound City as the starting and relay point of arteries of communication leading to and from the center of the country in all directions to and from all sections. So long as opu- lence and prodigality remain features of trade traditions the story of the Mississippi River traffic of St. Louis' early days will find eager listeners. It is claimed in some quarters that the wealth accumulated here through the enormous shipping on the great Father of Waters furnished the foundation for those fortunes and re- sources which in later days made the city the financial giant that it is.
The advent of the railroad revolutionized commercial communication. Of course, it resulted in loss to those peculiar lines of trade which depended for their sub- sistence exclusively on river traffic. The superb sleep- ing cars of the rail, with their incomparably greater expedition, displaced the floating palaces and their accompanying expensiveness of languid leisure. Per- ishable freight, which could not survive the longer period required for a boat trip down or up the river, was shipped on the swift-running trains ; and merchants and tradesmen grew to rely on the iron horse rather than the palatial and slower rolling river craft.
But the Mississippi boat-owners struggled vigorously against the railroads. And the fight brought an en- hancement of accommodation and facility in both methods of transport. Perhaps nothing more beneficial to the progress of St. Louis could have transpired than
HIGH SCHOOL ON GRAND AVENUE,
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IN TOUCH WITH THE WORLD.
this competition between great transit interests. Cheaper carriage tariffs brought greater profit to the shipper and lower prices to the consumer. Trade thrived and commerce expanded. The railroads, par- alleling the river at every opportunity and "milking" the transportation sources of the boat traffic, made St. Louis even a more important center of transportation by rail than it had been by water.
Thus what the pioneer and frontiersman brought about through necessity and convenience was perpet- uated by the later transit agencies for purposes of profit. St. Louis is to day the greatest interior railroad center in America. Thirty great lines find this their headquarters. Their combined mileage is many thou- sands of miles greater than that of all the railroads of either England, France or Germany.
The tremendous extent of this traffic is indicated by the fact that an average of 400 passenger trains, beside interminable strings of freight cars, arrive and depart from the city daily. Every comfort that is attached to the most elaborately furnished railroad system in the world finds its place on the lines running from Union Station. These trains, traveling in all directions, bring 30,000,000 of people into close contact within the brief space of twelve hours. Between the rising and setting of a sun more humanity hear the throb of the same en- gines in the territory surrounding St. Louis than it would be possible to reach by rail in the same time from any other point in the country. It is the proud boast of New Yorkers that 34,000,000 persons are
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IN A NUTSHELL.
domiciled within twenty-four hours of rail distance from Gotham-only 4,000,000 more persons than are reached in half the time from St. Louis. Were the same schedules in vogue on the same number of lines in an equally populated section beyond the twelve-hour limit, as is the case in the first twelve hours' ride from out the Mound City, the trains from St. Louis would reach 50,000,000 of people within twenty-four hours.
Certain it is that a twelve hours' journey from this city takes the traveler through a country more diversi- fied in its interests, more prolific in resource and re- sponding more readily to the touch of progress, than any section reached from any of the larger cities in an equal lapse of time.
Where there is such an expedition of communication by rail with such an important and extensive area, facil- ities of intercourse by wire and mail necessarily follow. The two great telegraph companies long ago recognized the need and wisdom of being prepared to meet every emergency in St. Louis, and the local offices of both concerns are fitted with means and appliances for the handling of as much telegraphic business as the most extraordinary situation might require.
The elasticity of these facilities was proven in 1896, during the Republican National Convention, when more matter was sent out over the wires from St. Louis than had ever before been transmitted by telegraph from one point during the same period. Every civilized corner of the globe is in direct touch with the city through the medium of the telegraph operator's key.
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IN TOUCH WITH THE WORLD.
Fully as important and gratifying to even a larger percentage of people are the splendid postal conven- iences with which St. Louis is favored. Fast mail trains, inaugurated from St. Louis in 1887 by a " West- ern flyer," now carry the daily newspapers to every hamlet in the city's tributary sections, north, east, south and west. The St. Louis morning papers, by means of these fast mail trains, are on sale in the streets of Burlington, Io., Kansas City, Mo., Little Rock, Ark., and Louisville, Ky., before 10 o'clock each morning.
There is no post-office in Christendom that affords a prompter or a more complete service than the one in St. Louis. Indeed, many reforms and improvements inaugurated here have been copied and duplicated in Chicago, New York and other cities. Among these is the latest venture of the Postal Department in the direc- tion of a quicker general service-the registration of letters by carriers. This plan was initiated in St. Louis, approved by the authorities at Washington, and is even now in process of extension to other sections of the nation.
Delivery of mail in the suburbs is expedited by the use of postal cars on the various electric street railway lines-cars fitted with as many facilities as the best coaches in the railway mail service.
Altogether, St. Louis' railroad, telegraph and mail facilities, by reason of their superlative effectiveness, annul distance and destroy space, putting the city in as close communication with the furthermost sections of the country as though they were adjacent districts.
GRAND MONUMENTS OF PROGRESS.
C ARTHAGE, Thebes, Memphis and the other heroic cities of the obscure past are known to us chiefly through the threads of architectural tra- dition that their ruins vouchsafe. Archaeologists find in the crumbled masonry of departed peoples the truest index to their lives, pursuits, hopes, ambitions and happiness. " Show me the market places and temples of a race and I will write you their history."
St. Louis could well afford to have its annals based on such a predicate. From the famous structure that spans the Mississippi on the city's eastern edge, through the spacious and conveniently-filled business houses of the down-town district, out among the tasteful cottages and homes of the residence sections to the modern palaces of the ultra-fashionable neighborhood, St. Louis architecture tells a story of artistic and utilitarian sequences.
Modern utilities present no more notable industrial monument then the great St. Louis steel bridge across
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GRAND MONUMENTS OF PROGRESS.
the Mississippi River. It deservedly holds place in the front rank of the world's structural and engineering feats. The genius of Capt. James B. Eads and the triumph of St. Louis' progressiveness find lasting union in this memorial of steel and stone.
Seven years were occupied in building the great structure. The contract for the masonry work was let in August, 1867, to James Andrews, of Allegheny, Pa. The first stone in the western abutment pier was laid on February 25, 1868 ; the first stone on the caisson of the east channel pier on October 25, 1869 ; and the first stone on the caisson of the west channel pier on January 15, 1870. The total cost of the entire bridge, including the approaches, was $6,536,729.99, but when the charges for interest, commissions for charters and financial agents, damages, hospital expenses, etc., are added the sum is swelled to nearly ten millions. The bridge was completed and opened to public travel on May 23, 1874, an elaborate celebration to commemo- rate the occasion being held on the following Fourth of July.
The structure is without its equal in the world in the way of bridges of the arch or truss pattern. It is the greatest bridge over the greatest river in the world. On June 9, 1874, it supported the first railroad train that crossed the Mississippi from Illinois to Missouri.
Each of the side arches of the bridge has a span of 502 feet in the clear, while the central arch stretches 520 feet over deep water. The three magnificent steel arches are fashioned with such engineering finesse that
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the utmost tensile strength is procured, and the burden that can be supported is far beyond the probabilities of ordinary use. The bridge is a two-story structure, the great arches carrying double-track railways with a broad highway, seventy-five feet in width, above. On this highway are promenades on either side, with four tracks or iron tramways for street-cars or other carriages between. Thus four vehicles may easily travel abreast along this great structure without blocking traffic.
The purposes for which the bridge was built required the construction of a tunnel through which trains could reach the St. Louis approach; and this undertaking was in itself a great industrial task. The distance from the entrance of the tunnel at the southern terminus to the terminus of the railway approach east of Cahokia Creek in East St. Louis is two miles 146 yards and two feet, which is really the length of the bridge railway.
Fifteen years after the completion of the Eads bridge, a number of the railway companies operating east and west lines through St. Louis opened to traffic the sec- ond structure that spans the Mississippi River at the Mound City. It is intended exclusively for railroad uses and is known as the Merchants' Bridge. It is in itself a structure of unusual magnitude and strength, stretching across the great Father of Waters from Bis- sell's Point in North St. Louis to a point on the Illinois shore opposite the town of Madison.
Following the great double railway tunnel that leads from the western approach of the mighty Eads bridge,
MERCANTILE TRUST COMPANY'S BUILDING, NORTHEAST CORNER EIGHTH AND LOCUST STREETS.
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GRAND MONUMENTS OF PROGRESS.
out under Washington Avenue to Seventh Street, along a curve from that point to Eighth and Locust Streets and thence under Eighth to Poplar Streets, a run of a few blocks brings the traveler to another of St. Louis' architectural wonders, Union Station.
When, on September 1, 1894, ceremonies were con. ducted in celebration of the formal opening of the St. Louis Union Station, an epoch was marked not only in the accomplishments of modern architecture, but in the history of railroads as well. No other transit depot in the world is entitled to comparison with this magnifi- cent edifice. Affording conveniences and facilities for traffic the recital of which would crowd columns of tab- ulated statements, the station is at the same time an artistic and engineering marvel. It furnishes one of the world-famous spectacles of St. Louis.
On Market Street facing north, the Union Station extends from Eighteenth Street west to Twentieth Street, a distance of 606 feet. The station proper, or head house, and the Midway between it and the train shed cover 497,092 square feet or eleven and one- tenth acres. The yards south of the train shed, be- tween it and the power-house, contain 465,970 square feet, making a total area for the Union Station itself, exclusive of all the main track approaches, of 963,062 square feet, or twenty acres. In this space of activity, there are nineteen miles of railroad track, of which the thirty-one tracks under the train shed compose three and one-half miles.
The largest inter-locking system in the world is em-
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ployed in the yards. It is worked by 122 levers and controls 130 switches and 103 signals. The station electric lighting plant has a capacity for 300 arc and 5,000 incandescent lamps. At the Eighteenth Street end of the great station building, the clock tower rises to a height of 232 feet above the track level and 247 feet above the structure's bottom foundation. It lifts itself from a base forty feet square and its conical roof shelters an arcade and a balcony.
The first ground for the construction of the Union Station was broken on April 1, 1892. The cost of the site, the buildings and the entire system of tracks and other improvements exceeded $6,500,000. The train shed is 700 feet in length and 606 feet in breadth; it covers an area of 424,000 square feet and shelters thirty-one tracks, on which are operated the railroads of twenty-two companies.
But the great host of utilitarian devices that are as- sembled in this magnificent structural area do not out- rival in interest the beauty of the architectural inge- nuity with which the whole is garnished. The massive front of Bedford limestone which first greets the be- holder on Market Street gives an augury of the artistic taste with which the arrangement of the interior is car-
ried out. Magnificent vestibules, spacious corridors and waiting rooms, exquisite alcoves and dormers, superb frescoings and allegorical figures, all surround- ing and leading to the superb grand central hall, make up an array of separate and collective beauties well worth considerable travel by the artistic sight-seer.
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GRAND MONUMENTS OF PROGRESS.
This grand central hall, 74X120 feet, with a floor area of 8,880 square feet, laid with mosaic tiles, with a barrel-vaulted ceiling sixty feet above and pierced at either end with arches forty feet in diameter, is one of the most notable chambers designed by modern arch- itects. Altogether, St. Louis' Union Station is a mon- ument of genius and progress in which the great city might well take one of its chiefest prides.
A decade has worked wondrous changes in the downtown architecture of St. Louis. One who visited the city in 1890 and returned at the beginning of the twentieth century would be immeasurably astonished by the character of the office buildings that have mean- while lifted themselves skyward. Indeed, practically all of the great edifices that make St. Louis one of the architectural leaders of the world have been erected in the past ten or fifteen years. It is little more than a decade since two stories were added to the Equitable building at Sixth and Locust Streets, and that structure became the solidly imposing pile that it is.
The two tallest structures in St. Louis adjoin each other on the North side of Olive between Seventh and Eighth Streets. They are the Union Trust and Chem- ical Buildings, the former being fourteen and the latter sixteen stories in height. Perhaps no other city in the world can boast finer office structures.
The Laclede Building at Fourth and Olive Streets holds the contested credit of being the first fire-proof " sky-comber" erected in St. Louis. The Commer- cial Building at Sixth and Olive Streets soon followed,
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and then came the Odd Fellows' Hall on Ninth and Olive Streets. Adjoining the Chemical Building on Eighth Street, opposite the mass of granite that com- poses the Post Office, is the Turner Building, which, though not as lofty as some of its neighbors, is one of the most substantial office structures in existence. Next to and north of the Turner Building is the Colum- bia.
On the other side of the Post Office or Federal Build- ing, on Ninth and Olive Streets, is the Century Build- ing, one of the largest and finest office structures in the world. The Holland Building, on the west side of Seventh, between Olive and Pine Streets, vies with its neighbor, the Union Trust, in loftiness of eleva- tion. Half a block south is the Fullerton Building, at Seventh and Pine Streets. It, the Carleton Building at Sixth and Olive Streets, and other of the newer office structures are perhaps a trifle more ornate in appear- ance than the downtown edifices that were erected half a dozen years before; but no office buildings in the world present a larger measure of comfort or a more assuring sense of solidity than such as the Globe- Democrat Building at Sixth and Pine Streets, the Hou- ser Building at Broadway and Chestnut Streets, or the Security Building at Fourth and Locust Streets.
The Rialto Building at Fourth and Olive Streets and the Wainwright Building at Seventh and Chestnut Streets are of the newer patterns, with the latest archi- tectural conceits of symmetry and airiness.
The Lincoln Trust Building, just across Chestnut
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GRAND MONUMENTS OF PROGRESS.
Street from the Wainwright, is an imposing structure. The new Mercantile Trust Building at Eighth and Locust Streets, and the Spencer Building at Seventh and Market Streets, both now in course of construction, will be magnificent additions to the city's growth.
Though the superb office structures of St. Louis rep- resent tens of millions of dollars in investment, a host of architectural triumphs and an unremitting world of industry, the commercial palaces and business edifices of the community are fully as representative in each of these directions. Perhaps one of the widest known industrial institutions of St. Louis is its leading brew- ery, the Anheuser-Busch plant. It is in itself a whole community, bustling with more energy, swarming with more humanity, and representing a larger financial in- vestment than are comprised in any one of a thousand American towns, each of which boasts a post office and a municipal organization.
The Anheuser-Busch plant, unlike most business structures, is worth inspection from a purely architec- tural standpoint. The component edifices, the grounds and plots surrounding them, the auxiliary comforts and arrangements, are designed and fixed with a nicety and tastefulness that compel artistic admiration. Then, when the beauty and magnitude of the buildings are comprehended, comes a sense of the enormous manu- facturing energy that finds its domicile there. More than 60,000,000 gallons of beer are annually brewed there and shipped to all quarters of the globe.
There are scores of industrial institutions in St.
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Louis, the proportions of each of which can be described only in superlative terms. There are the two largest tobacco factories in the United States ; the largest shoe house in the world ; the largest drug house in the world ; and there is the most notable wholesale and jobbing concern in the world, Cupples Station. Within a stone's throw of this enormous emporium are the dom- iciles of the largest hardware and the largest wooden- ware concerns in the world, while clustered all about them are the magnificent establishments of immense grocery, iron and implement, candy, drug and other mercantile houses, the structural material gathered there representing an outlay of fully a dozen million dollars.
Aside from its private and commercial buildings, St. Louis has a number of public edifices, each of which commands the admiration of architects. In grandeur of construction and elaborateness of design, the new City Hall, when completed, will be one of the finest municipal buildings in the world. Work on the build- ing was commenced in 1891 and thus far it has cost $1,550,000. Conservative estimates show that $275,- ooo more will be required for the structure's comple- tion. It consists of four stories and a basement, built of granite, brick and stone. The City Hall, with its grounds, occupies two blocks between Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets and Clark Avenue and Market Street. It fronts 250 feet on Market and 358 feet on Twelfth Street. The cost of construction is defrayed out of the municipal revenues, no bonds being issued for the purpose.
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GRAND MONUMENTS OF PROGRESS.
Perhaps no class of buildings gives St. Louis a wider reputation than its hotels. Up to a decade ago, the idea of sumptuous hostelries and superb caravansaries was peculiarly associated with New York and the larger cities of the East. Indeed, Gotham was credited with having the most magnificent hotels in the world. But ten years have worked marvels in the hotel accommo- dations of St. Louis, which to-day rival those of any city in America.
The Planter's Hotel, completed in the middle '90's, on Fourth Street, occupies the entire block between Pine and Chestnut Streets. The big structure, repre- senting an investment of more than $2,000,000, con- tains 450 rooms and accommodates on ordinary occa- sions from 1200 to 1500 guests.
The Southern Hotel occupies the block bounded by Broadway, Fourth, Walnut and Elm Streets. The proprietors claim it is absolutely fire-proof.
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