August’s Unseen STL History talks went underground.
Our Speakers
We heard from Julie Nicolai, who told us how she started down this massive, 30-year-long rabbit hole about the Underground Railroad in the St. Louis area. She featured a few stories from her new book, Enslavement and the Underground Railroad in Missouri and Illinois (Amazon link).
If you missed her talk, or you want to get your own copy of the book signed by the author, Julie will be doing a book talk and signing at 6:00 p.m. on Sept. 6th at Left Bank Books.
To follow along with her portion of the talk, you can check out her slides below:
Meanwhile, Amanda Clark from the Missouri History Museum talked about graves, caves, sinkholes, and mining in St. Louis. While I’m not able to share her slides here, I can provide a few links to give you a sense of her topic.
The first is the Missouri Geological Survey, from which Amanda pulled several different map views. This is an amazing resource, as it lets you view maps about Missouri caves, sinkholes, mining, and much more.
If you’re more into graves, you might enjoy a couple of articles I wrote about Amanda and her interest in gravesites. I profiled her in “Going ‘Beyond the Graves’ in St. Louis” and then wrote a piece about the James brothers, “Death and Circuses” after going on her tour and discovering Frank James was cremated in St. Louis. You can also check out this article, “Rest in peace, unless the cemetery closes,” that ran in the Post-Dispatch last year. And you can learn more about Amanda in this feature from St. Louis Public Radio.
Next Month
You won’t want to miss the next Unseen STL History Talks! On Sept. 21st, we will welcome representatives from the National Building Arts Center in Sauget. This will be a timely visit, as the NBAC’s first curated collection exhibition will open at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis in September. The exhibit, Urban Archaeology: The Lost Buildings of St. Louis, will run from September 8, 2023 -February 4, 2024. (You can go on a tour of the exhibit, led by NBAC director Michael Allen, on Sept. 9th.)
I’ll have more information soon, but in the meantime, you can learn a little more about the NBAC in my article Rescuing Architecture.
As a big fan of the NBAC, I am so excited about this talk, and I hope everyone comes out to join us that night. As a reminder, all of our talks are from 7-9 pm at Spine Indie Bookstore and Cafe, 1976-82 Arsenal St. Doors open at 6 pm, so arrive early to get a good seat (and enjoy a lovely handcrafted beverage). And as always, the Unseen STL History Talk series is free and open to all!
Interested in more Unseen St. Louis history?
Be sure to subscribe to Unseen St. Louis for the latest information, and follow Unseen St. Louis on Facebook to learn more about the talks and other fascinating aspects of St. Louis history.
If you’d like to support Unseen St. Louis, please consider a paid subscription to this Substack by clicking the button below.
As always, thanks for all your support and interest in St. Louis history. None of this would be possible without you.
Unseen STL History Talks - St. Louis Underground