40 South News (http://40southnews.com/series/doug-houser/)
No one asked for this post. I ran one of these images in my previous post, “Night of the Cobras”. I had a thought while looking at the Yale Loop Fire file that my blog followers would probably like to see these other images. That day it was 104 degrees in Maplewood. Perhaps that explains part of the appeal of these images to me.
A photograph sent by a reader, Michele, started me thinking about how we traded our original old streetlights for the modern (at the time) cobra heads. Then how our taste flipped and we gratefully deep sixed the cobra heads only to replace them with guess what? Faithful reproductions of the originals.
Then I started to think about some of the really wonderful streetlights that I’ve seen in Europe and I wondered have they kept them all along? If they have how is it that they’re smarter than us?
By now Bill Jones should need no introduction. He is very good at supplying me with these short sketches from his experiences here in Maplewood. I’ve been less good at getting them posted. I know you’ll enjoy this one titled:
Where The Clean Air Is–Maplewood! In 1934, we moved to Maplewood because mother had a lung condition (indicating possible TB).
These stories that Mr. Jones has been submitting are priceless. I’m not sure whether I should refer to him as Bill, Will or Billy but no matter. His stories let us understand past life in our community that we couldn’t possibly imagine otherwise. I’m sure you’ll enjoy his latest called:
My Lesson in Growing Up
February 5, 1939–My sister said, It’s Mr. Harper calling for Billy.” Mr. Harper asked me, “Will you be twelve tomorrow?
Now this is a story I’ve been wanting to post for a long time. Three years anyhow. Those of you who have been following this blog for that long will recall that is when the magnificent cabinetry of the original Harper’s Pharmacy was removed so the space could be restored. You may also recall how many of us were upset with Mr. John Hickey, director of the local chapter of the Sierra Club because he chose not to have the cabinets returned to the place they had been since their installation in 1926. We had an almost completely intact interior of an historic pharmacy, a time capsule of our community, miraculously survive until that April of 2014.
My last post featured a story from 1910 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that told of a serious yet completely forgotten explosion in Maplewood. It came to light from the furious digging of Maplewood history aficionado, Luke Havel. Commenting on that post, Luke pointed out that there was another very interesting Maplewood related story on the opposite side of that front page. I agreed.
Some posts are easier than others. This is one of the easiest of all. For me it is like shooting fish in a barrel even though I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to do that. For those of you who may be young enough to be unfamiliar with the phrase, like shooting fish in a barrel implies that something is as easy as taking candy from a baby even though I can’t imagine why anyone would do that either. Enough of this.
My co-author, Joyce Cheney, did a good job describing these events in our book, “The First 100 Years, Maplewood, MO.” Writing from her own research, she had this to say. Attention K-Mart Shoppers
James O. Holton, president of Citizen’s National Bank in Maplewood decided to take redevelopment into his own hands. Holton gathered fifty-seven local businessmen at The St. Louis Club and presented his vision for redevelopment: a six-block stretch of Manchester Avenue and surrounding streets, from Oakview Terrace to Big Bend would be rebuilt with retail venues in a park-like setting.
If you’ve been following the action here at Maplewood History you already know that Jim Fischer, whose family had early connections to Maplewood, gifted us with a good-sized box of crumbling, brown newspapers and other items that had once belonged to his parents.
He also threw in a small box of interesting old pamphlets that have nothing at all to do with Maplewood. They once belonged to a neighbor. I’ll have to get her story from Jim once more. I’ll post some of the more interesting of those possibly under a title such as, “Completely Unrelated Stuff Found While Looking for Maplewood History”.
First exhibited on Dec. 4, 2013 all of the photos that accompanied this blog post then had somehow dissipated into nothingness. Given the recent interest in the Wedge and EJ Tire I decided to reload it. Or perhaps since this is an article about a tire seller I should call this post a retread of the original. For those of you who know nothing about retreads, I can tell you I had a few.
Resurrected refers to the blog post not the building. Sorry. Several folks had asked about the history of the Wedge but when I went back to link to this earlier post all of the photos had evaporated into cyberspace.
So here it is again…back by popular demand. I’ll have more to add in a subsequent post thanks to information gained from the soon-to-be-legendary box of Jim Fischer’s.
Dogs are wonderful creatures. My wife and I have had four during our time here in Maplewood. The last two lived to be over sixteen years old. No dog lover would be unhappy with that but now they’re gone and we still feel the loss. Dogs are fairly unique among pets in that they are very good at getting the owners out of the house and around the block.