STLToday.com

Home > Buy historic photos & newspaper pages
Look Back: Smoky St. Louis
Date: 11/25/2009 Album ID: 896392
Photos by Post-Dispatch staff photographers
Slideshow icon View Slideshow
Pages: 1 2
“Black Tuesday” hit St. Louis on Nov. 28, 1939, as the worst of many smoke-choked days in what was to be the city’s smokiest cold-weather season. The city was already known for the nation’s filthiest air.
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--The sun tries to break through the pall of coal smoke surrounding the Civil Courts Building at Market Street and 12th Street (now Tucker Boulevard) on Dec. 17, 1931. St. Louis' air frequently was fouled by acrid smoke and soot during winters because its homes, businesses and railroads burned high-sulfur soft coal from the nearby mines in Southern Illinois. By 1931, a citizens' group had been pushing for reforms to clear the air, but City Hall had yet to act. People relied upon the cheap but sooty local coal, and the companies that mined, hauled and sold the coal had strong political influence. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Another view of a hazy daytime sun, this time at 11 a.m. on Feb. 8, 1938, over the clock tower at St. Louis Union Station. By then, the city Board of Aldermen had adopted an ordinance requiring everyone to either burn washed southern Illinois coal or install costly mechanical stokers in their furnaces. Coal interests opposed the washing, a process of removing some waste and impurities that didn't materially lessen air pollution anyway. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--The polluted air of downtown St. Louis, looking eastward, on Oct. 29, 1938. At far right is the Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. building. In the foreground is the North 200 block of 12th Street (Tucker). At near left is the old St. Louis Post-Dispatch building. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--The morning of Black Tuesday, Nov. 28, 1939, the smoke-choked day that became known as the worst day of a nasty winter season -- and was the impetus for redoubled city action to significantly reduce coal-smoke pollution. The view is of the Central West End looking eastward from the roof of the Park Plaza Hotel, at Kingshighway and Maryland Avenue. Barely visible through the smoke is the St. Louis Cathedral, only three blocks away. Less than five months later, the Board of Aldermen voted to ban the burning of soft Illinois coal except in mechanically-stoked furnaces, which didn't include homes or many businesses. Shippers had to bring in high-grade hard coal from Arkansas and West Virginia. The ban inspired outrage from the coal interests but soon led to a noticeable lessening of pollution. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Black Tuesday looking south across Market Street from its northeast corner with 12th Street (Tucker). Barely visible is the then-new U.S. Courthouse, now a St. Louis Circuit Court building renamed in honor of the late governor Mel Carnahan. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--The statue of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on the front lawn of City Hall appears ghostly in the acrid gloom of Black Tuesday. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--A man lights a cigarette on Black Tuesday on the sidewalk of the 1300 block of Olive Street. The flame of his match is clearly visible, as though it were night. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--One year later, a man poses and lights a cigarette at the same location. The photograph was taken to show the contrast in the air. By then, most of the city was burning hard coal from Arkansas. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Double-decker buses stopped in the filthy haze on Nov. 29, 1939, the day after Black Tuesday. St. Louis would endure many such days during the 1939-40 winter season. The view is at 12th and Market streets. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Members of Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann's new special Smoke Elimination Committee meet in City Hall for the first time on Dec. 13, 1939, only two weeks after Black Tuesday. Despite all the sooty days endured in St. Louis, Black Tuesday was bad enough to spur civic and political leaders to action. They are, from left, secretary John B. Sullivan, a lawyer; research advisors Dr. M.M. Leighton and Dr. H.A. Buehler; vice-chairman Kelton E. White, a broker; Mayor Dickmann; chairman James. L. Ford Jr., a banker; Dr. Alphonse McMahon, president of the St. Louis Medical Society; Gaston DuBois, a scientist; city smoke commissioner Raymond R. Tucker; and Chase Ulman, a construction contractor. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--The smoke persists. This photograph was taken on Dec. 28, 1939, one month after Black Tuesday. The view is south along 12th Street. Glowing through the smoke in the center of the photograph is the neon sign for the Jefferson Hotel, at 12th and Olive streets. That day's Post-Dispatch called the smog the 28th blackout day in less than two months. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Men standing in the smoky air in front of the St. Louis Main Library downtown in January 1940. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Men pose in the same location one year later, in January 1941, another effort to show the contrast in haze since the Board of Aldermen enacted the city's hard-coal ordinance in April 1940. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--City smoke commissioner Raymond R. Tucker in May 1940. A former professor of mechanical engineering at Washington University, Tucker went to work for Mayor Dickmann in 1934 as his secretary. In 1937, Dickmann appointed Tucker to be city smoke commissioner, assigning him the tough job of trying to clean the city's filthy air. In 1953, Tucker was elected mayor and served three terms. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Boy Scout David Barnes of Troop 31 delivers a city smoke-information pamphlet to Mary D. Reilly, 6049 Clemens Avenue, north of Forest Park, on Oct. 3,1940. With David is fellow Scout Warren Stice. The scouts and other groups handed out in formation to residents and business owners to encourage compliance with the city's new hard-coal ordinance. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--If the air was cleaner under the hard-coal rule, it still was plenty dirty by contemporary standards. This view of hazy downtown looking east from the front stairs of the Kiel Opera House was taken on Sept. 22, 1941. An accompanying article blamed the haze upon the number of buildings firing up furnaces to prepare for colder weather. Those start-ups usually made for particularly bad smoke. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Louis L. Horen, chairman of the St. Louis Fuel Dealers Association, angrily confronts the city Smoke Elimination Committee in the mayor's office on Oct. 9, 1942. Horen complains of onerous regulation in the city's hard-coal ordinance and predicts a shortage of coal in the coming winter. Committee chairman James L. Ford Jr. (lower right) predicts there would be enough coal delivered from Arkansas and West Virginia. By the time of the meeting, William Dee Becker was mayor. Tucker still was smoke commissioner. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Another example of heavy smoke even in the early hard-coal days. This view is of Market Street looking west from Beaumont Avenue, just west of Jefferson Avenue, on Dec. 27, 1943. The streaks are of car headlights in this timed exposure. Some bootlegged soft coal still made it into furnaces, and most older buildings still burned coal instead of natural gas, a fuel that was becoming increasingly popular. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Smoke rises in December 1945 from the chimneys of Union Electric Co.'s former Cahokia steam-powered generating plant across the Mississippi River from downtown. Many plants and factories still burned coal, and East Side governments hadn't enacted ordinances to restrict the burning of low-grade coal. St. Louis Mayor Aloys P. Kaufmann announced a campaign on Dec. 23, 1945, to urge East Side businesses, railroads and governments to reduce smoke, but politicians were reluctant to hurt Illinois mining interests. The long-dormant Cahokia plant still stands. Union Electric now is part of Ameren. (Lloyd Spainhower/Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
INPUT NOV. 24, 2009---LOOK BACK COLUMN--Resting switching locomotives of the Terminal Railroad Association at the Venice, Ill., railyard in December 1945. These three aren't making much smoke, but working locomotives behind them are filling the air. Local railroads began moving to cleaner diesel-electric locomotives during World War II, but some steam engines kept running well into the 1950s. In 1945, area railroads generally operated diesel switchers in the St. Louis yards but still used coal-burning steamers for most of their shuttling work on the East Side. (Post-Dispatch)
Email Page to FriendBuy this PhotoEnlarge this Photo
Pages: 1 2
MyCapture, Inc. - A Second Street Media, Inc. Solution
© MyCapture, Inc. - A Second Street Media, Inc. Solution All rights reserved.

FAQ | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Order Status