Maplewood History: More from Mary Piles (continued)

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I really like this image of Lowry Motors at 7434 Manchester, the site today of Gus' World Famous Fried Chicken.

A couple of weeks ago I began having difficulty uploading images to the internet.   I suspected my computer because it had acted up before by freezing up. Back then the guys at the Micro Center told me they could fix it but I’d lose everything stored in it.  I declined.  This time I spent quite a while downloading everything to an external hard drive.  Took the computer down to the store where they said it was all right.  While I was there I bought a new router.  Wasn’t anything wrong with the old one but I just figured I’d replace it because it was 4 or 5 years old.

A couple of days later an 18 year old friend of mine got the new router working and connected to the thermostat which I had not been able to figure out.  But the computer still could not upload photographs to the internet.  After an hour on the phone with a Spectrum representative who had me connecting and reconnecting the router, modem and computer in every conceivable way, she determined that I needed a new modem.

The next day I drove down to the Spectrum store on Manchester.  I drive by there fairly often and have noticed their trucks parked out front. Well the retail store has moved.  They are now in the Maplewood Commons.  Some very nice people work there who try as hard as they can to make your experience a pleasant one.  Let’s just say it is hard to get in and out of there very fast. I did manage to eventually swap my modem for a new one.  Home free I thought.

I took the new modem home, hooked it up to the new router (with all new ethernet cables as a precaution), Turned everything back on for the umpteenth time and … nothing had changed.  That was a couple of days ago.  Today, Thursday, a technician came out and began checking the wiring.  It took him two hours but he found the problem.  It was in a powered splitter attached to the side of one of the floor joists in the basement. I did not know I had one.  I had never heard of one.

That’s where I’ve been for the past couple of weeks.  Now we can get back to the interesting collection that Mary Piles has assembled from her research of the history of the company that she works for the former Citizens’ National Bank of Maplewood and St. Louis (6 locations).  The name of this venerable institution has changed.  It will now be known as the CNB St. Louis Bank.

Folks, I am still having difficulty trying to load this site.  I’ll work with it some more this evening.  Sorry for the delay.  Look for more of the images from Mary very soon.

Doug Houser

Let’s get this thing hopefully started back up with some images of advertisements that Mary has provided.

So far, so good. This ad comes from the December 22, 1916 edition of the Maplewood News Champion. I’m not certain where Mary discovered this but I know that the Headquarters Branch of the St. Louis County Library has a number of years of the News Champion on microfilm.
This ad ran the next month. It appeared January 19, 1917.
The United States entered the war in Europe on April 6, 1917.  This ad ran on May 5.
This one ran on July the 6th.
And this one on the 12th of October.
Reverse two of the numbers and we jump from 1917 to 1971, when apparently responding to the exploding women’s lib movement, the bank ran this ad on July 26.
Mary provided this look at the NE corner of Manchester and Big Bend in 1949. This is the corner White Castle occupies today. The large building once housed our second city hall and fire department. Note the war memorial on the corner.
I really like this image of Lowry Motors at 7434 Manchester, the site today of Gus’ World Famous Fried Chicken.  The home on the right is the Sarah Sutton Harrison mansion.  The building was slickly remodeled into today’s J.B. Smith Funeral Parlor.  One really cool bit of Maplewood history is the second floor of the mansion has survived intact.

 

This thing cut out on me a few times but I was able to get started again.  Hopefully we are on the road to recovery.

Thanks again to Mary Piles.  She has provided us with many more images which I intend to post.  Keep your fingers crossed that the gods of the cyber world will permit this to happen.

We are all living through a very difficult and unusual time.  The craziness seems to increase day by day.  I truly hope we can be on the road to sane solutions to the very serious problems mankind is facing. Climate change and the coronavirus threaten everyone on the planet.  We all live at the same address.  Be sure to vote for people who will make a difference.

And wear a mask.

Doug Houser     October 9, 2020

 

2 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks, Nancy, for more great comments. Does anyone know what became of Mr. Box? I’m sure he’s like to know he is being complimented for his behavior 66 or 67 years down the road. We should all keep this in mind.

  2. Great pictures!! Brought me to remember that I had a Christmas savings account at Citizens National Bank, and then I went to work at the bank in 1953-54. I started in the basement running the copier machine and taking care of supplies. Later, I moved up to be the bond teller. Mr. Box was the janitor then and he was the nicest young man. Thanks for all these great memories.

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