by Tim O'Neil --- Just before the Civil War, Missouri delegates gathered at the St. Louis Mercantile Library on March 4, 1861, for a special State Convention. Secessionists in the Legislature hoped the convention would help to push Missouri into the budding Confederate States of America, and Unionists hoped some of the city’s anti-secession feelings might sway the delegates.
3/4/2011
Album ID: 1184353
Photos by Missouri History Museum
Look Back: Whiskey ring trial
5 photos
St. Louis’ infamous "whiskey ring" trial began Feb. 8, 1876, at the U.S. Post Office and Custom House on Third Street, running for 18 sensational days. The defendant was Orville E. Babcock, President Ulysses S. Grant’s private secretary, who prosecutors said secretly ran interference for a multi-city scheme of payoffs to let liquor distillers avoid taxes.
2/11/2011
Album ID: 1170133
Photos by Post Dispatch files and Missouri Historical Museum
Look Back: Mississippi River Ice
24 photos
for sale
By Tim O'Neil --- In late January 1936, vicious cold tormented the Midwest. Lows here fell to -10 degrees. On the Mississippi River, large pancakes of drifting ice crunched against bridge piers and boats. The Army Corps of Engineers warned against crossing the rivers on foot. The foolhardy, though, rarely heed such things. T
2/6/2011
Album ID: 1165522
Photos by Post-Dispatch photographers
Look Back: the Old Cathedral
16 photos
On Jan. 27, 1961, Pope John XXIII decreed that the Old Cathedral on the riverfront would become the Basilica of St. Louis, King of France. Cardinal Joseph Ritter, didn’t think the time was right for an announcement, kept the hot ecclesiastical news in his pocket. As archbishop of St. Louis, Ritter could do that. There was serious sprucing to finish.
1/28/2011
Album ID: 1161173
Photos by P:ost-Dispatch staff photographers and files
Look Back: Concordia boycott
18 photos
for sale
The dispute over biblical doctrine and literal interpretation of the Bible at Concordia Seminary stewed for four years. The school's sponsoring denomination, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, suspended the seminary's moderate president, and a student rebellion ignited. On Jan. 21, 1974, the students voted 274 to 92 to boycott classes, pledging to stay out until their church leadership "publicly declares which members of the faculty, if any, are to be considered as false teachers."
1/21/2011
Album ID: 1156519
Photos by Post-Dispatch photographers
Look Back: Pope John Paul II visits St. Louis
25 photos
for sale
On Friday, Pope Benedict XVI set May 1 as the date for John Paul's beatification. On Jan 26, 1999, Pope John Paul II arrived in St. Louis for a whirlwind 31-hour visit. The 78-year-old Polish pontiff managed to take part in a frenetic youth rally in the Savvis (Scottrade) Center, celebrate Mass with 104,000 people in the dome and adjoining halls, took part in an ecumenical service at the New Cathedral and persuade a governor to spare a condemned man.
1/15/2011
Album ID: 931078
Photos by Post-Dispatch staff photographers
Look Back: St. Louis Central Library
13 photos
for sale
In America’s first century, most libraries were private collections. When St.Louis' new central library opened on Jan. 6, 1912, it was the city’s first free-standing main public library. With 80,000 volumes and spacious reading rooms, it offered a whole new cornucopia of knowledge, free for the browsing and borrowing.
1/7/2011
Album ID: 1148124
Photos by St. Louis Post-Dispatach staff photographers
Look Back: The New Millennium
20 photos
for sale
By the time Y2K struck the Arch on January 1, 2000, the new millennium party was at full blast. Along Washington Avenue’s club row, decked-out young people kissed everyone nearby. Then did it gain. Fears of entire systems shutting down due to computer malfunctions never materialized, and St. Louisans celebrated this once-in-a-lifetime event.
12/30/2010
Album ID: 1143378
Photos by St. Louis Post-Dispatch staff photographers
Look Back: Mayor's Christmas Dinner
16 photos
for sale
In 1933, newly elected St. Louis Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann, a New Deal Democrat, promised to provide hot holiday food for 25,000 people. The first "Mayor’s Christmas Party" fed 26,773 people Dickmann insisted the event be renamed "The Citizens’ Dinner," but the original stuck. For six lean years of the Depression, the mayor’s Christmas dinners served 260,000 meals.
12/23/2010
Album ID: 1140256
Photos by St. Louis Post-Dispatach staff photographers
Look Back: Demise of Times Beach
24 photos
for sale
In the fall of 1982, Times Beach residents learned that oil used to spray the town’s many dirt lanes had been laced with dioxin, a toxin deadly to animals, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began taking samples. On Dec. 6, 1982, the Meramec River crested 24 feet above flood stage, and the one-two punch of dioxin and floodwater sealed Times Beach's fate. It was never occupied again.
