As the land we occupy today was gradually converted from farmland to urban property, it was necessary to have many quarries to provide crushed stone, gravel, stone dust, etc. used in the construction of streets and highways. These quarries also provided building stone to be used in home foundations. The exterior walls in a few of our homes were completely made of stone.
There once was a large and deep quarry in Maplewood. An old timer once told me that at the bottom were tunnels that went off in different directions. The location was in the southwest corner of what is today the Sunnen business park between Big Bend and Hanley. It was on the north side of the Union Pacific railroad tracks.

In this aerial photograph, Big Bend Blvd runs horizontally across the top of the image. The factory buildings at the top center were once home to Sefton Can Corporation. Now they are owned by a storage company. The factory buildings on the left of the image were once owned by Mississippi Structural Steel. The name was later changed to Bristol. By the time this image was taken, the quarry had long ceased production of stone products and had been used as a landfill.
Using the dependable Newspapers.com again, the earliest mention I find of the Big Bend quarry is in these classified ads from 1910. I suspect that it had been in existence for some time before that.
In this ad applicants are instructed to go to Wall St. and Laclede Station road. This location has been obliterated by subsequent development.
Wall St. and Luda Ave. can both be seen on this excerpt from the Maplewood map in the 1909 Plat Book of St. Louis County.

The Maplewood Fire Department practicing a controlled burn on an old house at Wall St. and Luda Ave. Date unknown.
A laborer only got 2 bucks a day. I wonder where they would board them?
In this ad from 1914, the quarry operators are advertising for “teams.” There must have been companies that supplied teams of horses or ? to haul whatever.
It sure seems like hard work for 25 cents an hour.
This ad appeared on August 2, 1917 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They had a steam crane to hoist those boxes of rocks.
Big Bend quarry advertises that they pay the highest wages but they don’t say what they are. Plasterers could make 6 bucks a day.
Searching through the classifieds in the mid 1940s I found many ads like these. They were done quarrying and were selling all of their equipment.

By the time the above image was made the quarry had obviously been operating as a landfill for quite awhile. Judging from my limited experience with quarry landfills, I would guess that it is way over half full of debris at this point. As for the smoke, perhaps it was burning?
This must have made life unpleasant for the houses on the streets closest to the fill.

I wonder how often this happened?

In this image, the quarry is nearly full. In addition to the quarry building on the right, two or three of the homes on Luda or Wall can be seen in the background.

Ditto.



In the above image, the Union Pacific railroad tracks are visible at the top left. This greatly facilitated debris disposal by train. It may be why this landfill seemed to fill rather fast but that is just my unprofessional opinion.
I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I suspected that this quarry had been operating earlier than 1910. My reasoning is thus. There are 15 nearly identical stone houses just on the other side of Big Bend from the former location of this quarry. 10 are on Big Bend and 5 more are directly behind them on Walter Ave. I know for certain that one of them was built in 1910.
I was told many decades ago by an owner of one of these stone houses that they were built as spec houses by the owners of the quarry. I have never found any documentation of this but it stands to reason. If it is true, it seems likely that the quarry must have been operating for quite awhile before they could pull this off.

This lovely stone home in the 3200 block of Big Bend retains the original wooden front porch and columns. Many of the homes on Big Bend lost their front yards due to the widening of the street and the construction of the viaduct beneath the Union Pacific railroad tracks.
By the time this real estate photograph was made in 1950, of this 1910 home, also in the 3200 block of Big Bend, the wooden front porch had already been replaced with a stone one. This front yard was also lost to the widening of Big Bend.

Three of the 15 stone houses possibly built by the owners of the quarry. The original front porches are long gone. The house in the center is the same as the one in the previous photograph.
Well, it has been pretty cool here lately. Like 0 degrees Fahrenheit. Hard as it is to believe, it’s supposed to get up to 20 something degrees tomorrow and I’m looking forward to that!
As always, I appreciate your interest and support.
Doug Houser January 21, 2025
Thank you for these posts. We are new to Maplewood and love hearing the history.
You are welcome, David. Congratulations, you have chosen your new home well. I’m beginning my 50th year in the same house. My Maplewood History blog is nearing 500 posts on this site. You’ve some catching up to do so I’ll attach a link that should keep you occupied for awhile. Thanks for your comments.
https://40southnews.com/maplewood-history-links-to-sutton-thomas-posts/
The main RR tracks through Maplewood were Missouri Pacific Lines.
I used to ride my bike over to the quarry and marvel at how deep it was back in the late 40s.
On warm humid evenings, the stench from it was bad. I’ve often wondered how solid that ground is with all the “new” buildings on it.
Hey Don, You’re the only eyewitness to the Big Bend quarry that I know of. I’ve always wondered just how deep did they go? 200 feet maybe? I wonder who would know? I remember hauling construction debris to Rock Hill quarry when you had to drive way down in it to unload. It was very deep. I walked my dogs over the top of it when it was completely filled in. I knew something had happened there but I didn’t know what.
Once I talked to some of the fellows who built the railroad tracks for the Metrolink. They told be they had to put the supports right on the edge of the quarry. They said when they tested the ground over the quarry they hit nothing solid. Somehow the new buildings were able to be built in such a way that they have now stayed intact for many years. They have a vapor recovery system beneath them that vents methane straight through the building and out the top.
Were those tracks always Union Pacific? I believe if that winds through Maplewood would they not orginally be the Missouri Pacific tracks? If these go past along Greenwood, that would be the case! Why my father located us here! He was a Chemical Engineer for them downtown at the lab on Chouteau.
Hi Pickett, You and Don Wirth are both correct. The tracks were once called Missouri Pacific. I called them Union Pacific in this article because that’s what they are today. I should have pointed that out. Before the company was known as Missouri Pacific, it was just Pacific. That was the name of the street that runs parallel to the tracks in Maplewood, Webster Groves and who knows where else?. For reasons unknown to me, the Maplewood street sign was changed from Pacific to Railroad street some years back. Had I been consulted beforehand I would have been against this but I wasn’t. For the longest time, the street sign on southbound Big Bend denoting the exit just before the viaduct still read “Pacific”. It may still. I’ll have to check. Thanks for your input.
Doug,
First, in one of your comments you mention a “team of horses needed to deliver” you know this is why truck drivers today are known as “Teamsters” (logo is a wagon wheel and 2 horse heads).
Second, real oddity but how did 2 houses identical to the ones on Big Bend & Walter (the stone ones) end up over on McCausland just north of Manchester inside the city limits?
This has been a puzzler for me for years.
Hi Bill, I did know that about the teamsters and their union but other readers may not have. So thank you for mentioning it. I have noticed the two houses that you mention. They must have been built by the same contractor. Also notice the stonework on the commercial building on Manchester very near there. It is now being used by an auto body shop. It looks identical to these homes we’re talking about. Also there is another stone home on Clayton Road a few blocks east of the Hi-Pointe. Ditto. I think the stone work was all done by the same contractor. Thanks for your comments.
I do not even know how I ended up here but I thought this post was great.
Hey Lonny, I appreciate your comment. Since you didn’t know how you ended up here, I hope you got back OK.
Doug:
I really enjoy reading your stories. I always learn so much about the history of Maplewood! I live a few blocks from those houses & I’ve always wondered why they were built there. There is a stone house that is across from my
house (on Marion Ct) & I’m curious if it was also built by the same quarry.
Hi Ellen, I have no information on the home you refer to. I would guess that it was probably built by a private contractor but the stone may have come from the quarry. Thanks for your compliment.