http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Tue, 22 Dec 2009 00:00 CST en-us http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219216&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Three of Santa's young believers check out the Christmas display in a window at one of the downtown department stores in December 1936. Even in the hard times of the Depression, families took their kids downtown for the annual ritual of visiting Santa Claus and imagining what he might bring. The stores did their best to fill their windows and shelves with ideas. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219217&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
A young couple treks downtown in late November 1939 for a Christmas outing. They are watching the moving figures in a window at Famous-Barr depicting carolers in a parlor. Loudspeakers outside played along with carols. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219218&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Santa gives early Christmas presents to handicapped children who went downtown to see the department-store displays in 1944. The South Side Kiwanis Club hired a fleet of cabs to bring 160 children to the Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney store. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219219&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Santa visits Ferguson in a helicopter on Dec. 13, 1947. Families still headed downtown for the Christmas pageantry, but the migration to the suburbs already was underway. Famous-Barr would open its store in Clayton one year later. Northland Shopping Center, near Ferguson in Jennings, would open in 1955. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219220&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Families watch the First Family of Christmas in action in a window scene at Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney in December 1951. The three main department stores competed with elaborate displays in their streetside window and at their Santa visiting stations inside. That year, Scruggs' theme was "The Forgotten Mrs. Santa Claus." (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219221&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Train layouts were big draws during the glory days of Lionel and American Flyer, then the two most popular lines of toy electric trains. The stores reserved corner windows to allow for dramatic scenes of trains rushing out of tunnels, over bridges and through snow-covered towns. This is a view of Famous-Barr's five-level train layout in 1952. The store, now Macy's, still has a Christmas train display in the corner window at Seventh and Locust streets. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219222&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Another view of the Famous train layout in 1952. The suspension bridge shows how the window-display staffs at the three big stores worked hard to outdo each other. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219223&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Mrs. George Bicket, who lived near Tower Grove Park, and her daughter, Nadine Ann, view one of the Famous-Barr windows in 1953. That year, the store's "Salute to the St. Louis Zoo" featured mechanical chimpanzee figures playing in a band, getting ready for Christmas and, in this window, trying to get a jalopy moving. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219224&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Morton D. May, then general manager of Famous-Barr, gives a present to Michael Herron, who was visiting from the St. Joseph's Home for Boys in south St. Louis on Dec. 5, 1954. May, who later became board chairman of May Department Stores, died in 1983. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219225&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
The Christmas Kingdom Express at Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney in 1954. Creative displays such as this greeted families who lined up inside the stores to visit Santa. Usually, the waiting lines snaked through shelves filled with potential Christmas presents. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219226&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Nadine Pultman, 3, of University City, checks one of the tags on a doll at the Stix, Baer & Fuller store downtown in 1955. At her age, she probably wasn't too concerned with the price. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219227&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Donna Primo of Festus sits on Santa's lap at Famous-Barr downtown in November 1956 while her brother, Steven, waits to get his word in. Next in line are Kathleen Nachtwein and her foster sister, Nancy Rose. (post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219228&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
St. Louis workers finish raising the Christmas steamboat Reindeer across from City Hall in December 1956. The boat was part of the city's downtown display for more than a decade. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219229&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Uncle Otto, a clown who worked at the Santa visiting station at Famous-Barr in 1957, helps three-year-old Rita Hall examine a doll in the toy department. Rita's family lived in the 1400 block of Hebert Street, north of downtown. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219230&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
The department stores often sent Christmas cheer to the kids who couldn't make it downtown. Ellen Proctor's puppet, Bobo, dances up close to Sylvester Parker, a patient in the polio ward at old St. Anthony's Hospital, then in south St. Louis. Irene Slatten is sitting with Lawrence E. Mallinckrodt, president of Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney. The store sponsored the visit on Dec. 22, 1958. (Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219231&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
David Kothe, 4, son of Mr. and Mrs. David Kothe of Florissant, imagines himself commander of a toy tank at the Stix, Baer & Fuller store in November 1958. (Jack January/Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219232&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
The theme at Stix, Baer & Fuller in 1959 was Medieval wonderland, and shoppers didn't have to go inside to get the hint. Here is a display built onto the store's corner at Seventh and Washington streets. (Lester Linck/Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219233&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
A store employee dressed as Goofy the dog, one of Disney's treasured cartoon characters, shakes hands with a boy at the Stix toy department on Dec. 1, 1963. The girl standing with him isn't so sure about Goofy. The character playing the washtub base is another example of the many things that the stores did to draw kids and their parents downtown before Christmas. (Robert Larouche/Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219234&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:46 CST
Denise Sheltonof, 2, casts an unsure eye upon Santa Claus during a visit to the Pruitt-Igoe community Center on Dec. 22, 1967. Holding Denise is her mother, Alice Sheltonof. (Renyold Ferguson/Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219235&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:47 CST
Families check out the Famous-Barr window scene at the corner of Sixth and Locust streets on Nov. 28, 1974. They were honoring a season tradition that rapidly was fading away. Scruggs closed its downtown store in 1967. The year of this visit turned out to be the last of Famous' elaborate model-train display. Both Famous and Stix were reducing their window displays -- a bow to the migration of shoppers to the suburban malls. A model-train club brought back the annual train tradition at Famous, now Macy's, in 1988. (Jim Rackwitz/Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219236&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:47 CST
Johnny Culiberk, 3, of Granite City, managed to find a train running in one of the windows at the downtown Famous in 1975. It was part of a toy display. (Lynn T. Spence/Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219237&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:47 CST
Two children from north St. Louis County watch animated bell-ringers at the Santa display inside Jamestown Mall on Dec. 10, 1985. at left is David Hagner, 4, son of Thomas and Joan Hagner of Florissant. At right is Christina Nelson, 2, who was with her mother, Susan Nelson of Ferguson. By the 1980s, visiting Santa was something that most families did at the malls. (Lynn T. Spence/Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219238&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:47 CST
The scene at Santa's display in Crestwood Plaza on Dec. 1, 1986. It had bright lights and poinsettias, but the display couldn't match the wonderlands that were inside the downtown stores when these kids' parents were youngsters. (Robert C. Holt Jr./Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219239&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:47 CST
The Rev. Larry Rice meets with some of St. Louis' needy residents during the "Great Christmas Giveaway" at the New Life Evangelistic Center, 1411 Locust Street, on Dec. 15, 1988. The shelter was giving away donated toys, clothing and books. (Wayne Crosslin/Post-Dispatch) ]]> http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=27219240&event=911028&CategoryID=23105 Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:47 CST
Frosty the Snowman waves the crowds along Fourth Street during the Christmas in St. Louis parade on Thanksgiving Day 1990. The parade, then in its sixth year, was an effort to draw more people back downtown for the holidays. (Lynn T. Spence/Post-Dispatch) ]]>