By Tim O'Neil --- On the night of May 17-18, 1849, a hard wind blew from the northeast across the Mississippi River. It would serve as a bellows for a long, destructive night. St. Louis’ Great Fire destroyed 418 buildings on 15 blocks. Three people were confirmed dead, but more probably perished on the steamboats. At least one burning boat blew up.
5/13/2011
Album ID: 1246589
Photos by Missouri History Museum, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and History of St. Louis
Look Back: P-D reporter Virginia Irwin, 1945
10 photos
for sale
The first of Post-Dispatch reporter Virginia Irwin's stories on the fall of Berlin splashed the front page on May 8, 1945, the day after Germany’s surrender to the allies in World War II. One of the few women reporters overseas, Irwin and Boston newspaperman Andrew Tully were the first American reporters in the German capital.
5/6/2011
Album ID: 1242219
Photos by Post-Dispatch staff photographers
Look Back: Southwest Bank Robbery, 1953
24 photos
for sale
By Tim O'Neil --- On April 24, 1953, three masked men rushed into the lobby of Southwest Bank, Kingshighway and Southwest Avenue. Swinging a sawed-off shotgun, ringleader Fred Bowerman jumped onto a counter and shouted, "This is a holdup! Everybody stand still!" Police quickly rushed to the scene, and despite 40 gunshots and tear-gas shells, no one other than the robbers was hurt. In 1959, a movie called "the Great St. Louis Bank Robbery" hit the theaters. In the cast was young Steve McQueen.
4/22/2011
Album ID: 1231661
Photos by Post-Dispatch photographers
Look Back: Old County Courthouse, 1878
19 photos
On April 19, 1878, farmer Ralph Clayton shoved a spade into the earth in unincorporated St. Louis County, and the construction of the St. Louis County Courthouse began. Clayton, a 90-year-old farmer, had donated 100 acres for the $38,000 facility.
4/15/2011
Album ID: 1226632
Photos by St.Louis Post-Dispatch photographers and the Missouri History Museum
Look Back: Municipal Auditorium, 1934
28 photos
By Tim O'Neil --- Thousands jammed downtown St. Louis on April 14, 1934, for the dedication of the city's new Municipal Auditorium and Community Center. Eleven years before, voters had adopted an $87 million bond issue for an ambitious list of projects, and $5 million was allocated towards an auditorium. In 1942 the massive limestone building would be renamed in honor of Mayor Henry W. Kiel.
4/8/2011
Album ID: 1209732
Photos by Post-Dispatch staff photographers
Look Back: Martin Luther King assassination
11 photos
for sale
By Tim O'Neil --- The day after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot by a sniper on April 4, 1968, 75 St. Louis civil-rights leaders met at the Mid-City Community Congress on Delmar to plan a memorial march for Palm Sunday, two days hence. With everyone on edge, militants and moderates shouted at each other. Morris Hatchett, a World War II pilot and head of the local NAACP, stood firm against violence: "We’re all black... This battle of name-calling has got to go." They announced the march together. Although riots erupted across the nation, St. Louis didn’t burn.
4/1/2011
Album ID: 1200097
Photos by St. Louis Post-Dispatch staff photographers
Look Back: St. Louis’ Water Supply
19 photos
By Tim O’Neil --- As the World’s Fair was about to open in 1904, chemists at the St. Louis Water Works tried to fix the decades-old problem of the brown hue of the city’s water supply. Mayor Rolla Wells had promised clear water for the fair, but time was running out.
3/25/2011
Album ID: 1199804
Photos by St.Louis Post-Dispatch photographers and the Missouri History Museum
Look Back: The origins of the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners
4 photos
In January 1861, Claiborne Fox Jackson, Missouri’s new governor and a slaveholder, schemed to push Missouri into the Confederacy.
He fished from state files a bill that had failed in the Legislature the year before. It proposed managing the city police with a Board of Police Commissioners, modeled after Baltimore’s supposedly progressive system. Jackson liked the clause that let the governor appoint commissioners in St. Louis, a city that backed Lincoln’s election.
3/18/2011
Album ID: 1194208
Photos by from the archives of the Missouri History Museum
Look Back: St. Patrick's Day
21 photos
for sale
By Tim O'Neil --- On March 17, 1820, a small band of Irish settlers gathered to praise St. Patrick. It was the first recorded observance of St. Patrick’s Day here, although the sparse accounts disagree whether a parade was included. The Irish then were a small part of the city’s 4,400 souls. Marching came later.
3/13/2011
Album ID: 1189524
Photos by St. Louis Post-Dispatch staff photographers
Look Back: 1861 state convention
6 photos
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.
