Found St. Louis

This little guy at 2815 Meramec in Dutchtown was built in the late 1800s and the original building was further back than what you see here. It was built as a teeny tiny rental property and in the 1890s was rented for $12.00 per month. In 1900, a streetcar conductor and his wife were living here.

In the early 1900s, a storefront was added to the property so that someone could run a business and then live in the back. I love buildings where someone took a residence and added a storefront to it.

By 1910, this was a business selling notions. Notions are sewing supplies, a thing I definitely knew before I started writing this post. This building has also hosted a beauty shop, gun repair shop, heating and cooling company, and was a showroom for an awning company.

It has remained continuously occupied in some way or another for over a century.

If I can be honest though...I only took this picture because my initials are ET hehe.

🚨 TUNNEL ALERT 🚨

If you only learn one thing from me, please let it be this silly little fun fact: there is a tunnel under Chippewa near Kingshighway.

In 1951, successful department store Famous-Barr decided to open a brand new store at Chippewa and Kingshighway.

This store had it all: a basement plus three floors with everything you could imagine. I saw in an ad that they had a TREASURE SHOP. I’m so jealous.

By mid-century, this country was in full-throttle with our car obsession. Famous wanted to add parking for TWO THOUSAND CARS and there wasn’t enough on their side of Chippewa so they added more parking across the street. To make it more convenient for their customers, Famous added a pediestrian tunnel under Chippewa. You’d park in the lot across the street, go down an escalator, walk through the tunnel under Chippewa and take an escalator back up to the store.

Famous closed in January 1992 and of course the pedestrian tunnel was closed but...it’s still under there somewhere.

The Moolah Temple at 3821 Lindell is so freaking cool that I decided to read up on the Moolah Shriners and their founding was so....goofy.

I'm sure you've heard of Freemasons, the extremely old fraternal organization that uses a bunch of symbolic rituals and degrees to teach lessons in morality and personal development. I know there is a lot of mystery surrounding the Freemasons BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT THIS POST IS ABOUT OK!!!

The Shriners came to be because some Masons were hanging out in the 1870s and wanted to create a new fraternity for Masons that focused more on fun and friendship than on rituals.

One of the guys in this group went to a party thrown by an Arabian diplomat and had so much fun that he was like "THIS IS IT!!!! THIS IS THE THING!!!"

That is how the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (aka the Shriners) came to be. Dude had fun at a party and now everyone wears fezzes. They've also spent an extraordinary amount of money creating hospitals for children to be treated regardless of the ability to pay, and it would be so rude of me to leave that out.

This building is so great though. The Shriners had it built in 1913 in the Moorish Style - I'm gonna include some pics of other Shriners temples build around the same time because they are so fascinating.

The Shriners stayed in the Lindell building until 1988, when they moved out to Fee Fee Rd.

In the early 2000s, there was $17 million rehab job done to the building and it opened as a movie theater, bowling alley, and apartments. I remember it as the movie theater with couches.

In 2020, the movie theater closed, and I think the bowling alley is now closed too. I'd love to see that theater reopened in some way!!!