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Mapping History: The Story of St. Louis in Cartography
A compelling discussion between Arnold Stricker, Mark Langston, and guest Andy Hahn, centered around Hahn's new book, 'Mapping St. Louis: A History of the Gateway City in 40 Rare Maps.' Key theme to listen for is the significance of maps as not just navigational aids but as critical historical records that encapsulate the story of St. Louis over the centuries. The dialogue begins with a humorous yet serious exploration of how modern technology has changed the way we navigate our world, alongside a nostalgic reflection on traditional map-reading skills that may be fading away.
Hahn passionately shares his lifelong fascination with maps, which originated in his childhood home filled with historical artifacts and large maps. His narrative intertwines personal anecdotes with the broader historical context of St. Louis, showcasing how each of the 40 maps in his book serves as a snapshot of the city at different points in time. Listeners are taken on a journey from the city's founding days through significant developments, including the evolution of neighborhoods and the impact of socio-political changes that shaped the city's landscape. Hahn's insights illuminate the connection between geography and the lived experiences of St. Louisans, highlighting the importance of understanding one's environment.
The episode also addresses the darker aspects of mapping history, particularly the use of maps in systemic segregation practices like redlining, which have had long-lasting effects on the city's demographics and cultural fabric. This discussion prompts listeners to reflect on the implications of historical maps and how they can inform our understanding of contemporary issues. By the conclusion of the episode, the hosts and Hahn leave the audience with a deeper appreciation for maps as powerful tools that tell the story of a city, its people, and their collective journey through time.
Links referenced in this episode:
This is Season 7! For more episodes, go to stlintune.com
#maps #stlouismaps #reedypress #cartography #mappinghistory #raremaps
Transcript
How do you find your way around the city or around the state or around the country? If you're traveling, maybe you use some of the electronic maps that you find on your phone.
But what happens if we had an EMP blast and none of that worked? Do you know how to read a map? We're going to talk about mapping St. Louis. A history of the Gateway city, and 40 rare maps on St. Louis in tune.
Welcome to St.
Louis in tune, and thank you for joining us for fresh perspectives on issues and events with experts, community leaders, and everyday people who make a difference in shaping our society and world, I'm Arnold Stricker, along with co host Mark Langston. Mark Langston, how are you?
Mark Langston:I'm fine. I'm fine. I like old fashioned maps, so I'm excited about the show today.
Arnold Stricker:I do, too.
Mark Langston:Aeronautical charts. You see those?
Arnold Stricker:The maps that I'm most unfamiliar with are the maps of the sky. Yes. Like the constellations.
Mark Langston:Oh.
Arnold Stricker:And stuff like that. I just never was able to figure.
Mark Langston:That out in my scouting days.
We have an app where you can actually put it in there, and you hold it up to the skyd, and it gives you all the constellations and things you're looking at. We do that for our astronomy merit badge.
Arnold Stricker:I only got the big and the little dipper. That was the only ones I ever got.
Mark Langston:And where is the North Star?
Arnold Stricker:It's at the end of the Big Dipper, kind of pointing this way, right?
Mark Langston:I think it's the little dipper. I think it's a little different.
Arnold Stricker:I don't know. I'd be lost. I wouldn't know. The north side.
Mark Langston:And the mosses on what part of the tree?
Arnold Stricker:The north side.
Mark Langston:Good. Okay.
Arnold Stricker:I do know that.
Mark Langston:So far, so good.
Arnold Stricker:And solar panels on the north side.
Mark Langston:If you're in, is that right?
Arnold Stricker:The southern hemisphere.
Mark Langston:Okay. See, I didn't know. That's something I didn't know. I'm learning things today. Okay. Wow.
Arnold Stricker:We learn a lot on this show. We also try to help people be civil.
Mark Langston:Oh, it's about time.
Arnold Stricker:If you see someone looking for a place to sit and you have an empty chair at your table, wave them over and offer them the seat. If you don't know the person, it's a great way to get to know someone new.
Now, a lot of people, they really don't want to engage people they don't know. It might be just their personality type. It might be that they're just not comfortable talking to people and being outgoing.
When someone's looking for a place to sit, and the place is packed. Hey, we've got one right here. Come on over here.
Mark Langston:I have no strangers when I'm around. My kids always say, dad's making friends again.
Arnold Stricker:My wife says the same thing about you.
Andy Hahn:She says the same thing.
Mark Langston:And I've had more fun just talking to random people and.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah.
Mark Langston:Cause nobody expects you to talk to them. No, it's true.
Arnold Stricker:And you can learn a lot from people, and that's how we have a lot of people on the show. I talk to people all the time, man.
Mark Langston:I know.
Arnold Stricker:We get finding out what they're doing.
Mark Langston:I know.
Arnold Stricker:It's crazy. It's like our guest today.
Mark Langston:We're gonna talk to Andy eventually, aren't we?
Arnold Stricker:We are.
Mark Langston:Just checking. Okay.
Arnold Stricker:Andy Hahn's been on the show before, and he was on the show when we had Suzanne Corbett on with us. We talked about the, oh, it's a.
Andy Hahn:Feast for President Grant's birthday.
Arnold Stricker:President Grant's birthday was. I'm trying to get, it's the table to the gilded table and the, from.
Andy Hahn:The farm table to the gilded table.
Arnold Stricker:Farm table to the gilded table.
Andy Hahn:That was just about two years ago.
Arnold Stricker:I can't remember. I can't read my writing. That's part of my problem. Farm table to the gilded table. And that show is on stlintune.com dot. You can check that out.
That was very fascinating.
And my wife and I, several weeks ago went to the Campbell house, which, where Andy is the executive director of the Campbell house, and saw him there. And we went through that and. Amazing place. I highly recommend, if you've not been to the Campbell house in St. Louis, you need to go.
Mark Langston:Where is it? Where is it? Locust.
Arnold Stricker:It is on Locust Street. 15th and Locust street.
Mark Langston:Oh, okay.
Arnold Stricker:And we will talk more about that. But Andy's here to talk about this book. It's brand new, folks. Matter of fact, it's still warm from the printer.
I have to have some gloves on to hold it. It's called mapping St. Louis, a history of the gateway city in 40 rare maps by andrew W. Hahn. Andy, welcome back to St. Louis in tune.
Andy Hahn:Thank you. Appreciate the invitation.
Arnold Stricker:This book is crazy, and it's crazy good, folks.
Andy Hahn:I was gonna say, hopefully in a good way.
Arnold Stricker:Oh, in a great way. Because I've never seen some of these maps before in my life. And not that I'm a map connoisseur. I do love maps. I'm a nerd. As it far.
Growing up, I would read the encyclopedia britannica, and it sounds kind of weird, but I would go through and learn things that way. And when I go through here, I read things that I've never known before.
And there's a lot of pictures, there's a lot of words, but there are some things here that are just. They're just astounding. About the city of St. Louis.
Mark Langston:Oh, yeah. The history of St. Louis.
Arnold Stricker:Why did you write this book?
Andy Hahn:I have always been fascinated with maps.
he wall of that study, in the:They were big travelers. They would come back from a trip, and my grandma would point out on the map where they had been.
And when I was about five years old, I could, next to the map, there was this bamboo stick, and I could point out where Madagascar was and Norway. And that got me hooked on maps and just being interested in what they tell you about the world and the world today and history.
And then I, when I started to work at the Campbell house, my job is all about history and involves a lot of maps of the city, maps of the west. And so these kind of passion grew. And about ten years ago, I thought that would be a cool book.
You could tell the whole history of the city just through the lens of map. And that was the goal. And I think that's what I did.
Arnold Stricker:That's very interesting. You're a 7th generation St. Louisan. I've never met a 7th generation St. Louisan.
Andy Hahn: was born here around the year: Arnold Stricker:Oh, gosh, that's crazy. So we use crazy on this show. It's like, unbelievable. That's that acronym there. So you were a student at St. Louis University.
You interned at the couples house. Now you gotta listen to his. He's got a pedigree background, mark in history, and he loves houses.
e couple's house, and then in:You also serve on the American association of State and Local History, historic house committee and the board of Lafayette Park Conservatory and Friends of Tower Grove park. You're really engaged in a historical aspect of St. Louis and upholding that.
Did that come from spending time with your grandparents and seeing the map and all that kind of history?
Andy Hahn:Certainly. History was always my favorite subject. I always did, and I think that came out of that, those early days of learning about maps.
And this room in my grandparents house, where the map was actually a library, the one wall was floor to ceiling bookcases.
And so that just always got me reading and looking like you looking at books, looking at the atlas, pulling out the encyclopedia before you had a phone, that's how you got random facts, and now you just scroll, right? So, yeah, history has always been a passion. I've been very fortunate that I've been able to turn it into a career.
Mark Langston:What a great book, though, that it touches on so much history of St. Louis and the way that it does. It's fascinating.
Arnold Stricker: And you start back in: Andy Hahn:Correct. The first map of St. Louis was made just a few years after the founding of the city.
It was produced in:It actually shows the whole confluence area. It goes down from the Merrimack river all the way up to Missouri, but right there in the middle is St. Louis. So that's a cool map.
t map is it actually shows in: Mark Langston:Exactly. Gateway to the west. Yeah, and that's something.
Arnold Stricker:And some of these maps are, like, full two pages, folks. Like, I'm going to show you. This is that map that Andy was talking about here. And I'm just.
I'm trying to get some people salivating so that they buy this book. There is just so much here. And where did you get access to these from? Do you own some of these?
Andy Hahn:I own a couple of.
Arnold Stricker:The Campbell house has some of these.
Andy Hahn:The Campbell house has some. I own a couple of the newer ones. That particular one actually lives in Madrid, Spain.
Arnold Stricker:What?
Andy Hahn:It was made for the spanish government, because St. Louis was part of Spain at the time, and it was drawn and sent back to Spain, and it's been there ever since.
Arnold Stricker:How did you find out about this?
Andy Hahn:About 100 years ago, it was, quote, rediscovered, because through the 19th century and early 20th century, St. Louisans didn't even know this early map existed. So I've learned about it. A guy named Charles Peterson, a book he wrote called Colonial St.
Louis in the:So I sought it out, and thanks to the wonders of the Internet, it was relatively accessible.
Arnold Stricker:Wow, that's unbelievable. And map skills are something that I guess it's still taught.
My wife teaches social studies and history, so they still do compass rows and longitude and latitude and all that.
Is it because of the advent of electronic maps that we use Google maps and all those kinds of things, that we don't use maps anymore to track destinations or things like that? Is there something that can bring us back to that?
Andy Hahn:I write in the preface of the book that maps are more accessible and more used today than they ever have been because everyone has the most detailed atlas of the world in your pocket at any second. I think the skill that's lost is using that map to orientate yourself in your present space because your phone does that for you.
Your phone will tell you exactly where you are, and it will tell you exactly how to get to where you want to go. It will take, say, go 300ft, turn left, turn right, everything you need to know.
So that is a skill I think that's maybe lost a little bit or it's not as people aren't as comfortable with it as they used to be. I think another skill that's lost is the idea of mental map making and preparing for the book.
I read a couple articles by scientists who were really distressed that people aren't making mental maps like they used to.
And example of that would be you walk to school every day and you have that kind of map in your head about which terrain, the terrain and which way you turn and all that sort of thing. And people don't do that as much anymore, partially because of the phone.
I've got two high school kids and my daughter's a freshman, and I do carpool periodically, and there's two girls in the backseat, and the whole time they're doing this and they're not looking around. When I was a kid, you'd be looking out the window and thinking, oh, yes, Manchester Road. And you learn the landmarks and that sort of thing.
So I always tell them, put your phone away.
Arnold Stricker:Well, that's a great story. That's true.
Mark Langston:Yes. One of my favorite maps. I have many of them. But is a topographical map. We actually have framed one and put it on.
We have a vacation home, and it's on the wall at a vacation home. It shows you are right here, but it shows the terrain, it shows the creeks, and. You don't get that. I don't get that when I look at an iPhone map.
Andy Hahn:No, you don't.
Mark Langston:I don't get that.
Andy Hahn:It flattens the world.
Mark Langston:It does flatten the world. I think that's a good way to put it. And topographical maps are just like little stamps of an area, and it really zooms in on it. I love maps, myself.
Aeronautical charts. I love those, too.
Andy Hahn:They have a power. Draw you in. I can't really explain it, but I've found in writing this book that a lot of people have that desire to.
When you see it, you gotta see it more. You gotta study it more.
Mark Langston:Right. So it's historical.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. And it's present, too.
Mark Langston:Yeah. Good point.
Andy Hahn:So they have this unique draw, I think, that very few things in the world do anymore.
Arnold Stricker: oking at the map St. Louis in:Is that related to the Campbell?
Andy Hahn:No, it's not.
Arnold Stricker:No different than a different one.
Andy Hahn:So that particular map was reprinted in an early guidebook to St. Louis, for lack of a better description. If you came here as a traveler in the gilded age, you would buy this book, and it had a huge fold out map.
And that map is actually a little bit later in the book, but in the front of the book, just like a good guidebook would have today, it gives you a little history of the place who founded it? When did people start to live there? How did it grow? And that map was used to illustrate the kind of growth of St.
Louis, because in: Arnold Stricker:Wow. We've come a long way, baby.
Andy Hahn:We've come a long way. Yeah. And it stayed that way for a fairly long time. For about the first 60 years of our history, the city didn't grow in size very much.
tty. There's another map from: Arnold Stricker:Not that much different.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. It hugs the riverfront, because the riverfront was the superhighway.
Arnold Stricker:Right.
Andy Hahn:Riverfront is how you came and left St. Louis.
Arnold Stricker:And this is all now the gateway mansion memorial. Yep.
Andy Hahn:That's all the arch grounds. Exactly.
Arnold Stricker:That's. That's unbelievable. I love to see different portions of on a map, what it was then and what it is now. And you can see how. And this is great, folks.
You can see how the city continues to grow as Andy goes through this chronologically. He gives history, and he also gives. You can visually see.
You're not only reading it, you're visually seeing it, which I like the pictures I do read, though.
Andy Hahn:And only maps can do that. Yes, pictures can do that. But, you know, it's so hard to read a picture. And, of course, in the early days, there weren't photographs.
But when you can see it, flatten the world, like we said, and see a. See it mapped out that way, you really get a sense of, oh, look, there's six more blocks here that weren't here five years ago, five years before.
So they're special in that way and a unique tool for historians.
Arnold Stricker: king back when force or when.:And then when University City was established, that was, like, all farmland. And we think the city wanted to say, okay, we're gonna stop here at Skinker, because that's about as far as we're gonna end up going. Stinker skinker.
Mark Langston:I thought you said stinker.
Arnold Stricker:Skinker. Okay, and you look now, and we just drive out 64, and we just.
Andy Hahn:Keep going and going.
Arnold Stricker:Nothing going on there.
Mark Langston:I know. Kings highway was considered like the 270. It was the outer road of the right city at that time.
Now, I'm from Maplewood, and I love the maps of Maplewood, because Maplewood traded or sold a corner of Maplewood. So if you look at the old maps, it's almost a square.
If you look at the new maps, you can see where there's a bight taken out of it, where they traded with Richmond Heights, I think. And the housing stock is different there, too. They're brick and maplewoods mostly stick homes anyway.
But the map, seeing those maps, like you say, it's historical. It gives you a historical perspective of what's happened and then where you are now today. And I think it's fascinating and maybe where you're going.
Andy Hahn: last map in the book is from: And so now, as of: Arnold Stricker:Thank goodness.
Andy Hahn:So it's making for a lot of efficiencies, but it redrew the map, literally. And we're pretty lucky that they were quite careful in how they did it. The old wards cut up neighborhoods.
They were very willy nilly, and they went to a lot of effort to preserve neighborhood boundaries so that, you know, all of the central west end is in one ward, and before, I think, it was in three different wards.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah. Some of these earlier designations on this warden had four wards downtown.
Andy Hahn:Oh, yeah.
Arnold Stricker:Which was just, like, crazy.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. Makes no sense.
Arnold Stricker:We're lucky. We now we just have two.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. So it is.
That is something that's new, and it seems like it's leading to efficiencies, and it's great that neighborhoods are kept together politically. That's something. We're gonna watch and see where that.
Arnold Stricker:Leads, see how it works out. This is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston of St. Louis in toon. We're talking to Andy Hahn about the book mapping St.
Louis, a history of the Gateway City in 40 rare maps, and it's available through Reedypress. And we're going to talk in a little bit about where Andy's going to be, and you can see him get the book signed, et cetera, et cetera.
What's the rarest map in here, Andy?
Andy Hahn: question. Probably that early: ne right in front of you from:Those are probably the rarest ones because most of them are printed and were printed for some use, and maybe only ten were printed, but maybe a thousand were printed. It just depended on the map and what the audience was.
Arnold Stricker:And this is something I've seen on a lot of maps.
Historical maps is they will have some important places from the city that are drawn in, maybe historic events that happen, maybe historic people that are put around the border. Is that very common or not common as you find?
Andy Hahn:I discuss this map as an example of a pictorial map.
Arnold Stricker:Okay.
Andy Hahn:They're all different types of maps, and I wanted to include as many as possible in the book. And a pictorial map is not a map that is meant to be used for navigation.
It's a map that's meant to tell a story, and part of the story is, of course, told through the map, but it's also told through pictures, either pictures on the map or pictures around the map. And that's what that map does. It talks about the history of the city. It gives historical facts in the border, but also illustrates historical scenes.
map that we saw earlier from:So it's a map that's trying to do more than just show streets and the river, because, of course, the river is the most prominent feature on any St. Louis map. So you have, there's maps for navigation, maps that you would use to literally find your way.
There are, like, travel maps, tourist maps, a map that a tourist might get. There are scientific maps. An example of that would be the map in the book that illustrates the city water and sewer system.
a sewer, and that map is from:So it's the next before this.
Arnold Stricker:Wow, look at that mark.
Mark Langston:Oh, my. Oh, wow.
Arnold Stricker:No wonder it's all torn up downtown.
Andy Hahn: nvention here in St. Louis in:And it's color coded. There's three colors on there.
at least half of the city in: Mark Langston:So what's the third color for? What was the third color?
Andy Hahn:So there's one color, green. That means that area of town had water and sewer.
Mark Langston:Okay.
Andy Hahn:Blue means it only had water and no sewer. And then there's a yellow color, and that's only sewer and no water. So it was growing, and sometimes they didn't grow at the same pace.
Mark Langston:I'm not sure what I'd want and not want. Water is pretty important, but sewer is pretty important. Yeah, sewers. I don't know. It's tough.
Andy Hahn:I think I would go for sewer, actually.
Mark Langston:Yeah. Really? I get that.
Andy Hahn:Garden always collect water and rain water.
Mark Langston:Right. Good, good, Andy.
Arnold Stricker: then as part of that, like in: Andy Hahn:Yeah.
Arnold Stricker:And the sewer history to just give people a snapshot.
Andy Hahn:This was not meant to be a detailed study of any particular aspect of St. Louis history, but here's the map. We're gonna look at this story through the lens of this map.
And then I tried to tell a little bit of that story in about six or 700 words.
Arnold Stricker:So are you trying to get people to do more investigation on their own from looking at this and reading this book or finding goal?
Andy Hahn:I never thought of that, actually. I do hope that it really piques people's interest in the history of their city, whether they were born here or whether they are relatively new here.
So I'm hoping it just gets people thinking about the city they live in and all the different aspects of it, both past and present.
Arnold Stricker:Okay, this is Arnold Stricker with Mark Langston. We're talking to Andy Hahn about the book mapping St. Louis, and we're going to come back and talk more about that.
We're going to take a little break here. This is Arnold Stricker again with Mark Langston. You're listening to the us radio network.
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On behalf of the Dred Scott Heritage foundation, this has been Arnold Stricker of St. Louis in tune to. Welcome back, folks, to St. Louis. In tune with Arnold Stricker and Mark Langston.
Mark Langston:Yeah, we're having fun.
Arnold Stricker:We are. Andy Hans here talking about his book mapping St. Louis.
Mark Langston:Andy, have you ever seen big Bang theory?
Arnold Stricker:Yes.
Mark Langston:Okay. Sheldon Cooper has an episode, fun with maps.
Andy Hahn:Oh, I have not seen that episode.
Mark Langston:Is that right? You haven't seen it? Okay. It's a big episode.
Andy Hahn:Okay.
Mark Langston:You should look it up.
Andy Hahn:I'm gonna look.
Mark Langston:I will see fun with maps. He does a YouTube thing.
Andy Hahn:Okay.
Mark Langston:And it's called fun with maps. It is really very well done. You would enjoy it.
Andy Hahn:I will search it out.
Mark Langston:These are fun. Fun with maps.
Arnold Stricker:So if you want to get the book or see Andy get a book signing, he's gonna do some presentations and book signings. Monday, October 14, at the Florescent Historical Society. That's the Gittemire house. You know, that house was in danger of getting knocked down.
And I know it used to be. Was it? The barn was up there. They had a restaurant up there.
Andy Hahn:Right.
Arnold Stricker:That was vacated, and the house was.
Andy Hahn:Vacant for a while.
Arnold Stricker:Yes. So check that out. That's.
Andy Hahn:They've done great work up there.
Arnold Stricker: Yeah.:That's the Campbell house museum. And we'll talk more about the Campbell house. Another at the stoop pavilion at Tower Grove park. That's November 3.
ot familiar with that. That's:On the grant's trail. That's Saturday, November 16. That's a great day. That's my wife anniversary.
Mark Langston:Okay.
Arnold Stricker:Kern Pavilion at Lafayette park. That's Sunday, November 17. That's near the boathouse up there. The Campbell House Museum again on November 24. January 11. Ulysses S.
Grant National Historic Site. February 6, the Missouri History Museum. And lastly, but not least, February 16 at the Carondelet Historical Society.
to this page, Mark. It's the:And you were pointing out at break, Andy, about. There's various colors here, but tell about the detail.
Andy Hahn:So these maps were created by companies to help insurance companies assessed the risk of insuring a property.
So back in the day, before Google street views and Google satellite views, which insurance companies use all the time, if you wanted to have insurance carried on your property, they would want to know, what am I insuring? How big is it? Where is it? What's it made out of? So on and so forth. So there were companies that specialized in making maps that told that story.
nd they go back as far as the:They give the address of that building, and then there's a little code in there that will tell you all sorts of things. How. What's the building made out of? Is it brick? Is it stone? Is it wood? What is the roof made out of? Is the roof tar? Is it slate?
How many stories is it? Where's the closest fire hydrant?
All this type of detail, which is proved invaluable to historians, to help us see what our cities are missing, what had been there. So it's a cool. It's a really cool set of maps. And through this map, I tell the story of city hall.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah.
Andy Hahn:Cause city hall in the early 20th century was brand new. A lot of people don't realize it took ten years to build St. Louis city hall, a gorgeous structure.
Mark Langston:I had no idea.
Andy Hahn:Not because construction was slow, it's just because the city only released so much money every year for the construction.
Arnold Stricker:So nothing's changed, has it? I'm surprised it's even complete now. Did I say that?
Mark Langston:Arnold's not bitter.
Andy Hahn:But after ten years, they eventually finished it and dedicated it. And we're lucky to have such a gorgeous structure.
Arnold Stricker:It is. And it's amazing to see all these homes right across the street.
Andy Hahn:Uh huh. So this is a parking lot today. This is the.
Arnold Stricker:We see parking lots down there.
Andy Hahn:We do, yeah.
Mark Langston:Wow.
Arnold Stricker:It's just amazing.
Mark Langston:I've noticed some of these old. Did they ever do anything with distances? I'd bring out a compass and some old maps. I use some of the old maps, though.
I'm looking, I'm going, how can I tell a distance? Like a mile or whatever.
Andy Hahn: So this map from:There's a series of concentric rings that fan out will tell you how many miles. And this is actually a tourist map.
And so that map was meant to, when you bought it, it was folded and if you look carefully at this illustration, you can see all of the creases in the folds.
Mark Langston:Okay. And those were.
Andy Hahn:And you can see these rings. And that tells you how many miles you are from the center.
Mark Langston:I see.
Andy Hahn:So I think each one of these is 2 miles, if I'm not mistaken.
Mark Langston:Fascinating. Okay. Because I wasn't seeing a lot of that. And there they are. Okay. That's amazing. Yeah.
Andy Hahn: ou could see in this map from: Arnold Stricker:And it has a street index on it also, which becomes probably a lot more prevalent as the city grows and develops.
Andy Hahn:And there's more streets.
Arnold Stricker:And these are very famous, these pictorial viewpoints. They're like birds eye views.
Andy Hahn:Exactly. Yeah. And for that map, actually, I didn't actually choose one of the viewpoints. I actually chose the key.
That is literally the key to understanding this work. It's a map of the city shown flat, but also shown in perspective, the same perspective as the views.
And that map is sliced up into 110 squares, and each one of those squares is numbered, and that's the plate to help you navigate yourself through the book.
Arnold Stricker:And they really get into the detail of that.
Andy Hahn:Yes. It's an amazing work. It is. Someone needs to write a work just on that book because it's an unbelievable.
ord of our city exactly. From: Arnold Stricker:You see these sometimes in antique stores. The plates or the reproduction of the plates and the books are very expensive if you get them at an auction or something like that.
Mark Langston:Oh, is that right?
Arnold Stricker:But you can go and go.
That building's still standing and seeing what it looks like or seeing what the downtown area like, this particular view that I'm looking at on page 54, it shows river boats down on the levee and multiple kind of boats, and people unloading things. And I see the old cathedral is in this particular. And the planter's house is there. I think that's the planter's house right there.
Andy Hahn:That's the merchants exchange, actually. The planter's house would just be a little bit of west.
Arnold Stricker:Okay.
Andy Hahn:Further. Yep.
Mark Langston:Did they have a schedule to redo maps, like, every year? Every two years. Was there any kind of. Was it just.
Andy Hahn:Well, I guess it ends on. It depends on the type of map. This street department here in the city of St. Louis maintains the official map of the city.
Mark Langston:Okay.
Andy Hahn:And they update that annually.
Mark Langston:Okay. Have they always done that since the.
Andy Hahn:Late 19th century, I think.
Mark Langston:Okay. Wow. There's a lot of, there's a lot of history.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. And that official map of St. Louis, the most important thing about that is the fact that all the block numbers are noted and the block numbers.
Every block in the city of St. Louis is given an official number.
And that's how all city services, real estate records, all those things refer to that block number because you can't really use an address because addresses change over time. The street name can change. Even the number of a building can change over a time, but the block numbers are constant.
Arnold Stricker:If you go online on the city's real estate site and you plug in an address, it gives you several kind of different maps at the very bottom as you scroll down, and it will show that residence in conjunction with the rest of the neighborhood, et cetera, like that. Wow.
Andy Hahn:And usually one of the first things on the description is block number. And it's a three or four digit number.
Mark Langston:I have seen that. That's interesting.
Arnold Stricker:I wonder if they keep a map of the potholes.
Andy Hahn:I doubt it. It would be a very complicated.
Mark Langston:He's not bitter, detailed map. We're gonna put a steel plate out in front of your house.
Arnold Stricker:Talking about the steel plates. They're wanting now to know.
There I was reading this in front of the board of aldermen was introduced that rather than put the plates on top of the pavement, they want them so the pavement is level with them. And the only reason Speyer said that we don't make them levels because we're not required to.
But in other municipalities and other cities, we are required to.
Andy Hahn:I don't think we're hard enough on our utilities to keep our streets.
Arnold Stricker:Oh, and also was there was that you can't tear up this brand new street that we paved last year until five. Five years go by.
Mark Langston:Oh, is that right? Wouldn't that be nice?
Arnold Stricker:Because common things is, we pave this, and then two days later, we're tearing it up or we're marking it up.
Mark Langston:With, why don't they fix it before they do it? Here we go. He's taking one of those exit ramps.
Arnold Stricker:One of the things that has been fixed up very nicely is the place where Andy is director. Is it director or executive director?
Andy Hahn:Executive director.
Arnold Stricker:Executive director. Campbell House. Give us a little history of Campbell House.
Andy, you've been there a long time, and it is a wonderful, I don't want to call it, it is a museum, but it's a house of history.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. I've been fortunate enough to work there for over 20 years.
Mark Langston:What? Get out of here.
Arnold Stricker:You don't look that old. Does he?
Mark Langston:No, he doesn't. Congratulations. That's really great.
Andy Hahn:So 20 years of my, wow. The bulk of my career has been spent there. And it is a special place. As you said, it's not just a museum and it's not just a house.
It's in many ways a living, breathing place. Even though the people that live there have been gone a very long time. The story of St.
Louis lives on in the what they left us in their furniture, in their carriages, in their papers. So we're open to the public five days a week and people come down and visit us.
And visit to us is maybe not like a lot of museums because at the Campbell house you're greeted at the front door and a docent actually walks with you through the entire building. So everyone gets a guided tour. And I know you were just there recently, and I think you will agree that really makes it extra special.
Arnold Stricker:Yes.
Andy Hahn:It's one thing just to walk in a room and kind of look around, but when there's someone there to tell you what was that room used for? What happened in that room? Or what's so interesting about that chair? That's what we do the best.
Arnold Stricker:Isn't it wonderful that President Grant was a dinner guest here in that house? Yes. And that he actually went out on the front porch or the front area when a band was playing out there.
Andy Hahn: posedly newspaper talks about:They knew the president was there and everyone wanted to get a glimpse of him. And he stepped out and he waved. And this is quoted in the newspaper and how the reporter got this, maybe he just made it up.
But standing next to him was misses Campbell, Virginia. And she said to him, or he said to her, you have no idea how exhausting this is to be feted.
And Misses Campbell supposedly replied, well, general, it's just to honor the people who love you.
Mark Langston:Yeah, good answer.
Andy Hahn:Yeah, that was a very diplomatic and very good answer. And how maybe the reporter was standing right there under them, I don't know. But I've always wondered how did they get that?
Arnold Stricker:Yeah. Had one of those miracle ears. I think what's very special about it is when you look at that house, the affluent area of St.
Louis, and it was originally called Lucas Place.
Andy Hahn:Exactly.
Arnold Stricker:And it's now Locust street. But the street was lined with these houses. And now it's the only one.
Mark Langston:Wow.
Arnold Stricker:The only one. And you have. And what was around it was one of the first high schools west of the Mississippi.
Andy Hahn: west of Mississippi opened in: Mark Langston:Tear it all down.
Andy Hahn:Tear it all down.
Arnold Stricker:And it is the only representative house of that time that was considered out in the boonies.
Andy Hahn:Yeah, it was a mile from the river. And when it was built, people thought, why would you want to live so far away from all the action? A mile.
This is before streetcars, and you walked everywhere.
Mark Langston:You had to walk a mile.
Arnold Stricker:It has the original stone out front. You see this at Lafayette Square, also where it was a carriage step. So you would step on the stone, and then you could step up into.
Andy Hahn:The carriage, because the carriages have big wheels and they're much higher off the ground than any suv.
Arnold Stricker:They have some carriages at the Campbell house. Very interesting.
Mark Langston:Encourage everyone to go, yeah, that's open Monday through Friday.
Andy Hahn:No, it's open Wednesday through Saturday. Ten to four, and Sundays, noon to four.
Mark Langston:Okay, good.
Arnold Stricker:And you can literally go like we did. We just went right up, knocked on the door. No, a docent answered and took us on the tour.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. And the end of the year, we have a couple special things. The last two weeks of February, we recreate Robert Campbell's funeral. He died on October 17.
And like most people, he was buried from home. And because he was a prominent St. Louis, and the newspaper covered in great detail, his funeral, it is like two columns. They're like, this long.
And so we recreate that. There's a coffin in there and flowers and everything, black crepe draped. And so we do that through Halloween.
And it culminates in our twilight tours with the morning Society of St. Louis, the Friday before Halloween. And then from mid November through mid January, we have our old fashioned victorian Christmas.
Arnold Stricker:I don't think I knew how influential he was nationally at the time, not only financially. He was, like, one of the richest men in the country. And then his influence. Can you just give us a little bio about Mister Campbell?
Andy Hahn:He was an irish immigrant. He came to St. Louis as a teenager. This was over 200 years ago. He was 19 when he arrived here. And he made his first career.
And a name for himself in the fur trade that involved going west to the Rocky Mountains, where the beavers were. That was the most valuable. And that first trip involved a nine month trip. Nine month walk one way from St. Louis.
Mark Langston:A walk?
Andy Hahn:A walk. They walked because the horses were loaded down with all their goods that they were going to supplies and everything they were going to trade with.
So they walked next to the horses.
Mark Langston:Wow.
Andy Hahn:Eventually, he and a partner named Bill Sublette would start their own company. They would build a place called Fort Laramie, which became the halfway stop on the Oregon trail.
Sublette and Campbell would help found Kansas City, Missouri. After Sublette died, Robert would continue on his own and got involved in banking and steamboats and eventually the railroads.
And at the end of his life, he owned the largest hotel in St. Louis. It was called the Southern Hotel.
Arnold Stricker:And he was like one of the original mountain men.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. He was one of the first white Americans to see the grand Tetons and the Great Salt Lake and the geysers of Yellowstone when he was going out there.
The historians described the Rocky Mountains as a mystery, to the point where they make the comparison that we knew more about the moon when we set men there than they knew about the Rocky Mountains when the mountain men went there. It was that unknown. And of course, the trip to the moon was a lot faster than it was the Rocky Mountains. We figure a nine month walk one way.
Mark Langston:Wow. Oh, yeah. They had to come back, didn't they?
Andy Hahn:Yeah. Back was easier because you could float back. It was not for the. It was not for the faint of heart, for sure.
Mark Langston:Cannot imagine.
Arnold Stricker:Is there a surprise in here.
Andy Hahn:A surprise?
Arnold Stricker:Like, I look at these, I thought these maps were very interesting where they talk about densities. This is the density of the negro, population, trends of population, suicide rates that are mapped in here, what rentals.
And this is the irish population.
Andy Hahn:I think that set of maps is the most powerful. And the one that I feature in particular in the beginning of that section is what's called the redline map.
That map was created from the:And in 22 districts, they plotted out how many residents in that area of the city were black.
color in St. Louis before the:It really shows that if you were black, you could live here but not there.
Mark Langston:That's wrong.
Andy Hahn:Yeah.
Arnold Stricker:And it has percentages here also.
Andy Hahn: ose statistical maps from the: Mark Langston:Wow.
Arnold Stricker:We've come a long way in some things. This particular map I'm looking at is an aerial. It's the adult education council of greater St. Louis. What does this mean? Map tell us.
Andy Hahn:That map is interesting for a couple different reasons. One, it's in this crazy perspective.
Arnold Stricker:It is.
Andy Hahn:It's not just a looking down flatten the map. It's taken the map and tilted it and created this. Really.
I find it uncomfortable to look at, almost especially when you look at the western part of the city, because it seems distorted, almost. But that was the artist's intention. Not necessarily to make it uncomfortable, but to create that kind of perspective.
And the goal of that map was really to illustrate the educational opportunities in St. Louis in those years right after World War Two.
So where all the schools were, whether it was a high school or a university, where you could take classes, like at places like at the YMCA. It even notes on that map where the bookmobile stops are.
Mark Langston:Love it. Used to love the bookmobile. I don't know if they even do it anymore.
Andy Hahn:I don't know either. I love that too.
Mark Langston:Yeah. It's one of my favorite things.
Arnold Stricker:Is there anything you haven't covered in here? Like we have the educational.
Andy Hahn:Oh, sure.
Arnold Stricker:The real estate I had.
Andy Hahn:It was actually really difficult to winnow it down to 40. Maps.
Arnold Stricker:Really.
Andy Hahn:There are hundreds and hundreds.
Arnold Stricker:What are some ones that got left out?
Andy Hahn:They either got left out because there wasn't a good map for it. There's no maps that talk about religion or sports or things like that.
Mark Langston:Oh, those would be. Yeah.
Andy Hahn:But I don't know of any maps that really tell those stories.
Arnold Stricker:The archdiocese have some.
Andy Hahn:They probably might have one. I bet you they do. And maybe that's for the second. Volume two.
Arnold Stricker:Volume two, yes, that's right.
Andy Hahn:But there's not a topographical map in there. And we talked about that. I just ran out of room.
It would be really interesting to see a topographical map of the city because there's high ground very close to here. Just up the road at the Compton Hill reservoir. That's the high ground.
And then there's low ground down along the river de per, down along the Mississippi, right through the center of town. Right. The old Mill Creek.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah. The high point is across from the St. Louis. The Arsenal hospital. Right. It actually. There was a hospital there for.
It was essentially the prostitute hospital where they would treat. It was the hospital for. I think it was actually called the ill repute hospital of ill repute.
Mark Langston:Okay.
Arnold Stricker:And it got knocked down. But that was a park there. Right. Now. That is the highest point in St. Louis.
Mark Langston:Is that right?
Andy Hahn:Sublette park.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah. Siblet.
Mark Langston:And then there's a street called plateau. I know I've been on that street. It's way up there. You go on that street, you can see forever.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. The northwest part of the city, there's a neighborhood called Cote brilliant. And that's a really high part of the city as well.
There was a big open plain there historically, and that's where the wagon trains set out from. That's on an earlier map. What?
Mark Langston:Yeah. I like topographicals.
Arnold Stricker:Gosh.
Mark Langston:Fun with maps.
Arnold Stricker:I had a question, and it just eluded me.
Mark Langston:It eluded you?
Arnold Stricker: cyclone, the great cyclone in: Andy Hahn: ,:It is, to this day, the second most destructive tornado in american history in terms of loss of property and property value.
Arnold Stricker:Wow.
Andy Hahn:And just like today, when there is a horrible disaster that's newsworthy, people want to know all about it. Right? The news trucks are right there. They didn't have news trucks.
So what happened is photographers went to work, they took pictures of all this destruction. There's dozens of different books that show photographs of the tornado. There were newspaper accounts.
Of course, people then would compile those newspaper accounts in a book, and someone made a map, and he took a map that already existed, an existing map. And basically what he did is he had printed on top of that map this red splotch. And the red splotch shows the path of destruction of the tornado.
And it starts in the Clifton Heights neighborhood. And the twister is fairly small, but by the time it reaches about King's highway, it gets a lot bigger.
And by the time it reaches Jefferson Avenue, it's huge. And it just cuts a path of destruction. I think it's about 25 blocks wide, and it just leveled big sections, and.
Arnold Stricker:That was the main portion because there's areas around that still got some damage.
Andy Hahn:But inside those red lines is where you see devastation. Houses with no roof and two walls missing.
Arnold Stricker:That sort of the question I was going to ask you that eluded me. How long did this take?
Andy Hahn:I've been thinking about it for ten years, but in terms of sitting down and working on, it took me about six months.
Arnold Stricker:That's pretty good. That's pretty good. And how many hours a day?
Andy Hahn:About eight.
Arnold Stricker:Wow. 8 hours a day for six months full time.
Mark Langston:Job there.
Andy Hahn:I would come home from work and then I would sit at my desk.
Mark Langston:Oh, the family loved you.
Andy Hahn:My wife says, who are you? You just disappeared for a while.
I would take a break here and there, but there was some pretty intense weeks where I just came home and I sat at my desk all day.
Arnold Stricker:There's times when you're in a group you have to keep going.
Andy Hahn:Yeah. And when, like any project, it was hard to get started. It was really hard.
Mark Langston:Oh, yeah.
Andy Hahn:But once I got going, it just.
Mark Langston:Don'T want to quit.
Andy Hahn:Yeah.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah, you can. If I missed some questions for you folks, you can ask Andy at some of these places.
Monday, October 14 the Florescent Historical Society, the Gittemire House, October 20 at the Campbell House, November 3 at the Stub Pavilion at Tower Grove park. He's also going to be at November 6 at the Landmark association of St. Louis that's on South 9th street. The Thomas Sappington House on November 16.
November 17, the Kern Pavilion at Lafayette Park, Campbell House, November 24 Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, January 11 Missouri History Museum, February 6 and the Carondelet Historical Society on February 16.
I'll post those on the podcast page, stluntune.com and you can find that information. Andy, thanks for coming in and talking to us about this.
Andy Hahn:Great pleasure. Yeah, good to see you again.
Arnold Stricker:What a great book.
Mark Langston:Really appreciate it.
Andy Hahn:Glad you enjoyed it.
Arnold Stricker:Highly recommend it. I love that kind of stuff. Mark. And do you have, is this the day of maps or something? Is there a map day I haven't seen?
Mark Langston:No. We have love note day, which goes with lumberjack day.
Andy Hahn:Okay.
Mark Langston:Send your lumberjack from one to the other. I know. National compliance Officer Day, which is your favorite. I know.
Arnold Stricker:Wow. Yeah.
Mark Langston:Key lime day. Do you like key lime?
Arnold Stricker:I love key lime day.
Mark Langston:Really? This is your day, brother. National Dumpling Day.
Andy Hahn:All those things are today.
Mark Langston:Yes. What do you do? I know this is your congress working.
Arnold Stricker:Ok. Or your state legislature.
Mark Langston:This is what they.
Andy Hahn:I know what you do. You get your compliance officer key lime pie.
Mark Langston:That's it. That's the bribe that you want to do. I know it. Coming up, American Indian Day, which is good. I like hug a vegetarian day. Do you know any vegetarians?
I know one.
Andy Hahn:I know quite a few.
Mark Langston:Do you? I know one guy that will not eat anything with eyeballs.
Arnold Stricker:I probably know more vegetarians than I do vegans.
Mark Langston:Is that right?
Andy Hahn:Yeah.
Mark Langston:I thought the eyeball thing was interesting because some vegetarians will eat fish.
Andy Hahn:Yeah.
Mark Langston:Yeah. But I know one that says if it's got eyeballs. I'm not eating it. Yep. This is what things we talk about. Morning show host day. Here we go.
Yeah, there's only a couple of more brave day. Chocolate milk day. You like chocolate milk?
Andy Hahn:Love chocolate milk.
Mark Langston:Yeah. And national corned beef hash day. Yum.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah.
Mark Langston:Isn't that.
Arnold Stricker:Yeah, that's good stuff.
Mark Langston:All right.
Arnold Stricker:That's good.
Mark Langston:Yeah.
Arnold Stricker:Did you know that the first five days after the weekend are the hardest?
Andy Hahn:True.
Arnold Stricker:And then there was the note, the tip that was left for the waitress. The bill was $32.76 and the tip was, don't call my husband sweetheart.
Mark Langston:Oh yeah, love that. Okay.
Arnold Stricker:And a lot of times the weather people, they give out. They'll give out the temperature and then the wind chill, especially like if it's in the wintertime.
The weather guy who figured out the wind chill, he died. He was 86, but felt like 75.
Andy Hahn:Wow.
Mark Langston:What is wrong with him?
Arnold Stricker:And a man asked his wife, what would you do if I won the lottery? And she replied, I'd take half and leave. Great. He said, I won $12. Here's six. Stay in touch.
Mark Langston:Sorry, we're jumping the gun on some of those. I said, you don't have more, do you?
Arnold Stricker:Yes.
Mark Langston:No. Please tell me no.
Arnold Stricker:Godzilla. I love the Godzilla movies. I remember growing up as a kid, you'd see the japanese Godzilla show. Mouse were moving and then, yeah, it was weird.
But the new Godzilla movies I really like. And Godzilla didn't win an oscar until he was 70 years old and had starred in 38 movies. Never stop following your dreams.
Mark Langston:All right, thank you. Thank you very much.
Arnold Stricker:Let's see here. There we got here.
Mark Langston:See this is Andy. This is the problem here.
Arnold Stricker:I hate when people suggest that I get a job doing something I love. No one is going to pay me to binge watch crime shows on Netflix and nap all day.
Mark Langston:I happen to like Bosch Halloween Candy is.
Arnold Stricker:It came out after the 4 July it seems like.
Mark Langston:Oh, my wife won't let me buy it.
Arnold Stricker:So the Halloween candy's on sale right now folks. But no, you should not buy it. It's a trick. Buy it now and you'll shame eat it on the couch. You'll have to buy it all over again.
It's very clever these candy companies, but you can't fool me a 14th time.
Mark Langston:Wait, take a bow will you?
Arnold Stricker:Okay, I guess I better stop there. Mark, while I'm.
Mark Langston:Are you really gonna stop there?
Arnold Stricker:Actually gonna stop there?
Mark Langston:No. I don't believe it.
Arnold Stricker:It's been fun having Andy on the show and come back anytime.
Andy Hahn:Oh, thank you.
Arnold Stricker:Especially when you get volume two out. Yeah, we really want to have that. And don't wait ten years to do that.
Andy Hahn:No, I won't. I won't.
Mark Langston:And don't make your wife mad 8 hours a day.
Andy Hahn:She wasn't too mad about it.
Mark Langston:Okay?
Andy Hahn:She still talks to me.
Arnold Stricker:Folks, you need to get to the Campbell house down on Locust Street. 15th and Locust. Please do that.
Andy Hahn:You can buy the book there.
Arnold Stricker:Yes, you can.
Mark Langston:I'll get it signed, maybe.
Andy Hahn:Definitely.
Arnold Stricker:Andy, is there occasionally nothing like a.
Mark Langston:Signed book by the author?
Andy Hahn:Yeah, that's true.
Arnold Stricker:And we'll post those other dates and places on the podcast page. I that's all for this hour. Thank you for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, you can listen to additional shows at st. Lintune.com.
consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, podchaser or your preferred podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners and continue to grow.
I want to thank Bob Berthisel for our great theme music, our guest Andy Hahn, and our co host, Mark Langston. We thank you for being a part of our community of curious minds St. Louis and Tune is a production of Motif Media Group and the US Radio network.
Remember to keep seeking, keep learning, walk worthy, and let your light shine. For St. Louis in tune, I'm Arnold Stricker.
