I was waiting for the Lackede name to pop up! My father worked in their accounting/bookkeeping shop while taking classes to make it as a CPA. We used to have a number of their bricks around the house. Later we moved out to Overland where our house backed on to what i think was a creek feeding into the Des Peres and doubling as a storm drainage channel as runoff from our streets in the neighborhood were fed into it. I think it was channelized with concrete in the 1980s.
This bridge may pre-date 1925! Laclede Fire Brick (later Laclede Christy) was at this location from the 1860's and had as many as 10 bridges on its property to traverse the River Des Peres, railroad tracks, and streets that ran through their property. Also, this bridge connected to Sulphur Avenue that ran south of the River Des Peres to Wilson Avenue near Hampton Avenue. It also gave access to the Laclede Christy headquarters' building that was built in early 1950's on Hampton (this building after Laclede Christy ceased operations in the late 1950's became the Metropolitan Sewer District headquarters'
Thanks for the comment! I actually had hoped for that, but after doing my research I discovered that it was a replacement for earlier bridges, most if not all of which did not survive the channelizing of the River Des Peres. My suspicion is that they put this bridge in around that same time. I talk a bit more about the clay operations in https://unseenstlouis.substack.com/p/the-sulphur-springs-of-cheltenham and hope to do more on the topic in the future.
I was on Manchester today turning at Sulphur. I looked over and said “Hey, there’s the bridge I read about!” Thanks for the history lesson.
Oh wow, you have no idea how happy this makes me! My little bridge has new friends! :)
I was waiting for the Lackede name to pop up! My father worked in their accounting/bookkeeping shop while taking classes to make it as a CPA. We used to have a number of their bricks around the house. Later we moved out to Overland where our house backed on to what i think was a creek feeding into the Des Peres and doubling as a storm drainage channel as runoff from our streets in the neighborhood were fed into it. I think it was channelized with concrete in the 1980s.
This bridge may pre-date 1925! Laclede Fire Brick (later Laclede Christy) was at this location from the 1860's and had as many as 10 bridges on its property to traverse the River Des Peres, railroad tracks, and streets that ran through their property. Also, this bridge connected to Sulphur Avenue that ran south of the River Des Peres to Wilson Avenue near Hampton Avenue. It also gave access to the Laclede Christy headquarters' building that was built in early 1950's on Hampton (this building after Laclede Christy ceased operations in the late 1950's became the Metropolitan Sewer District headquarters'
Thanks for the comment! I actually had hoped for that, but after doing my research I discovered that it was a replacement for earlier bridges, most if not all of which did not survive the channelizing of the River Des Peres. My suspicion is that they put this bridge in around that same time. I talk a bit more about the clay operations in https://unseenstlouis.substack.com/p/the-sulphur-springs-of-cheltenham and hope to do more on the topic in the future.