Charles Dickens, writing of St. Louis in 1842, describes this quarter:
"In the old French portion of the town the thoroughfares are narrow and crooked, and some of the houses are very quaint and picturesque: being built of wood, with tumbledown galleries before the windows, approachable by stairs or rather ladders from the street. There are queer little barbers' shops and drinking houses, too, in this quarter; and abundance of crazy old tenements with blinking casements, such as may be seen in Flanders. Some of these ancient habitations, with high garret gable windows perking into the roofs, have a kind of French shrug about them; and, being lopsided with age, appear to hold their heads askew, besides, as if they were grimacing in astonishment at the American improvements.
"It is hardly necessary to say that these consist of wharves and warehouses and new buildings in all directions; and of a great many vast plans which are still 'progressing.' Already, however, some very good houses, broad streets, and marble-fronted shops have gone so far ahead as to be in a state of completion, and the town bids fair in a few years to improve considerably; though it is not likely ever to vie, in point of elegance or beauty, with Cincinnati.... The Roman Catholic religion, introduced here by the early French settlers, prevails extensively. Among the public institutions are a Jesuit college, a convent for 'the Ladies of the Sacred Heart,' and a large chapel attached to the college, which was in course of erection at the time of my visit.... The architect of this building is one of the reverend fathers.... The organ will be sent from Belgium.... In addition to these establishments there is a Roman Catholic cathedral.
"No man ever admits the unhealthiness of the place he dwells in (unless he is going away from it), and I shall therefore, I have no doubt, be at issue with the inhabitants of St. Louis in questioning the perfect salubrity of its climate.... It is very hot...."
The cathedral of which Dickens wrote remains, perhaps the most sturdy building in the section which forms the old town. It is a venerable-looking pile of gray granite, built to last forever, and suggesting, with its French inscriptions and its exotic look, a bit of old Quebec. But for the most part the dilapidation of the quarter has continued steadily from Dickens's day to this, and the beauty now to be discovered there is that of decay and ruin—pathetic beauty to charm the etcher, but sadden the lover of improvement, whose battle cry invariably involves the overworked word "civic."
An exception to the general slovenliness of this quarter is to be seen in the old Merchants' Exchange Hall on Main Street. Built nearly sixty years ago, this building, now disused and dilapidated, nevertheless shows a façade of a distinction rare in structures of its time. I was surprised to discover that this old hall was not better known in St. Louis, and I cheerfully recommend it to the notice of those who esteem the architecture of the Jefferson Memorial, the bulky new cathedral on Lindell Boulevard, or that residence, suggestive of the hanging gardens of Babylon, at Hortense Place and King's Highway. Take the old Merchants' Exchange Hall away from dirty, cobbled Main Street, set it up, instead, in Venice, beside the Grand Canal, and watch the tourist from St. Louis stop his gondola to gaze!
But what city has respected its ruins? Rome used her palaces as mines for building material. St. Louis destroyed the wonderful old mound which used to stand at the corner of Mound Street and Broadway, forming one of the most interesting archeological remains in the country and, together with smaller mounds near by, giving St. Louis her title of "Mound City."
With Dickens's statements concerning the St. Louis summer climate, the publication, "All About St. Louis," does not, for one moment, agree. In it I find an article headed: "St. Louis has Better Weather than Other Cities," the preamble to which contains the following solemn truth:
The weather question is purely local and individual. Every person forms his own opinion about the weather by the way it affects him, wherever he happens to be.
Having made that clear, the writer becomes more specific. He informs us that, in St. Louis, "the prevailing winds in summer blow over the Ozark Mountains, insuring cool nights and pleasant days." Also that "during the summer the temperature does not run so high, and warm spells do not last so long as in many cities of the North." The latter statement is supported—as almost every statement in the world, it seems to me, can be supported—by statistics. What wonderful things statistics are! How I wish Charles Dickens might have seen these. How surprised he would have been. How surprised I was—for I, too, have visited St. Louis in the middle of the year. Yes, and so has my companion. He went to St. Louis several years ago to attend the Democratic National Convention, but he is all right again now.
I showed him the statistics.
"Why!" he cried. "I ought to have been told of this before!"