Maplewood History: An Ultra Rare Image of the Ellendale Train Depot is Discovered!

More Extraordinary Images From The Collection Of The Missouri Historical Society

A Tale of Two Albums

The Missouri Historical Society has (in their archive on Skinker across from Forest Park) two small photo albums that have turned out to be very important to the history of Maplewood.  They belong to a collection that was donated by Margaret Sappington Townsend.

Margaret was the daughter of Wallace Sappington and Annie C. Sutton, (a descendant of James Compton Sutton Sr.).  Wallace and Annie were married at the Sutton mansion on Nov. 1, 1883.

Both albums have very many photographs.  Album one has no dates or names.  Album two has many of both.  As of this writing, I can’t say for sure who created these albums.

One thing that is for sure is that both albums contain many images that I call ultra rare.

James Compton Sutton was not the founder of Maplewood.  He probably never heard that word.  He was the earliest pioneer of land that became part of Maplewood.  He died in 1877.

This is the earliest mention of the subdivision of Maplewood, from which the city takes its name, that I have found. 1890.  James had been dead for 13 years.  I doubt that he would have liked this name.  After all it had been his farm.  His son-in-law, William Lyman Thomas, wrote that it should have been named Sutton because there were more Suttons around than maple trees.

I am calling these albums, Album One and Album Two, based on the numbers of the scans provided to me by the Missouri Historical Society.  I’m going to jump back-and-forth from one album to the other. There is evidence that they both may have been created about the same time.  The front cover of Album Two gives no hint of what is just inside.

How about this amazing image for starters?  It is glued to the inside of the front cover.  No dates or names accompany it.

The first page has two photographs glued to it. This one has no date or names with it.  I believe the location is Maplewood but I can’t say where exactly.

This is the other photo from the first page.  The address on this house is very clearly 7177.  From other images in this collection, I have learned that it was on Manchester, west of Sutton even though the address would have you think otherwise.  Images added to the album later show that the address had been changed to 7477.  This is a fairly common problem for historians.  As the population increased, it was sometimes necessary for the post office to change the addresses.

Then on the very next page…blow me away…the Ellendale Train Station!!  This is one of those ultra rare, solid gold images that make it all worth while.  This train station was located on the NW corner of McCausland and Southwest Avenues.

The 1906 date on this image is the earliest that I’ve found in Album Two.  Album One contains no dates.  This is an interesting sign because the intersection of Lanham and Manchester is in the heart of our commercial business district today.  But perhaps this sign means that the realtor Frank Kershaw can be found at that intersection?

This is exactly the kind of photograph that this historian loves to find.  Information with recognizable buildings.  The girls are on the property of Merritt Marshall on the SE corner of Sutton and Manchester which is behind them.  Behind Irene’s head is the Banner Lumber Company at 7353 Manchester.   Directly behind Elva’s head is the, now lost to redevelopment, intersection of Arthur and Manchester.  The girls are facing southwest.

What a great image.  It is undoubtedly on “Grandpa Marshall’s” property at 7360 Manchester.  Cora, last name, Leon, shows up in several other pictures.  Mom is in many.  But whose Mom is she?  I don’t know yet.  Notice the two buildings, joined at a bit of an angle, that are behind and to the right of Elva.  They are on the NE corner of the intersection of Arthur and Manchester.

This an aerial view from about 1955 of the aforementioned intersection and the buildings that make it so easy to identify.

Note that much of the Marshall tract had yet to be developed in 1909.  The Sutton mansion still had a nice piece of land around it on the tract that John L. inherited from his father.

This is a tintype that is in the collection of our library.  I think it’s much older than the date of 1890 that someone guessed at on the rear of the image.  Merritt Marshall is on the front porch.  My guess is that Mary Sutton Marshall is standing to the right of him.

I wrote the above shortly after I began this blog on 10/27/2013.  This one is number 488 and I’m not done yet.  Who’d a ever thought it would go on this long?

Well, expect a lot more.  The two albums are loaded!

Thanks again to fellow Maplewoodian Lauren Sallwasser, an archivist of the photographs and prints and the other very helpful people at the Missouri History Museum library on Skinker.

Happy Springtime!!!

Doug Houser     April 11, 2025