Dec 25, 2023

The Louisiana Purchase created havoc for some property owners, certainly for women and person’s of color. People were suddenly forced to prove rightful ownership of property, when before that, property ownership was parsed out in informal verbal agreements, etc. One free woman of color, found a way to live out her...

Dec 18, 2023

Back in the 1880s, one super-fan of baseball named Henry Lucas decided there should be more sporting options in St. Louis, and so he started his own team. In fact, he started his own baseball league to compete with the National League and the American Association. Thus was born the Union Association League and The...

Dec 11, 2023

There was a time when, if a steamboat sank or exploded, as they often did on the Mississippi, nothing could be done to recover the wreckage. But in 1842, an industrious man named James Eads found a way to change all of that and to build his fortune in the process by inventing a diving bell. Just press play to hear the...

Dec 4, 2023

The 1904 World's Fair had many wonders, and it brought over sixty countries from around the world to showcase their technologies and their cultures in Forest Park. One of the most popular exhibits was the Chinese Pavilion, a huge structure modeled after a summer palace in China. Prince Pulun, the heir apparent of China,...

Nov 27, 2023

In the later part of the nineteenth century, shipping was very much a nightmare. Samuel Cupples and his business partner Robert Brookings were tired of moving their goods to far away rail yards before they could even be put on trains. In 1894, they came up with the revolutionary idea of building warehouses right above...