What Lies Beneath!

The other day, while walking on Lemp Avenue, near my new home, I noticed this, pictured to the right. Actually I noticed it because I nearly tripped over it while crossing the street. Yes, streetcar tracks still exist under the pavement in St. Louis. My St. Louis streetcar books are packed up, so I do not know what line this was, but it is very interesting, as it appears as if the street has been paved only once since the end of streetcar service.

As some of you may know, I'm in the process of moving prior to getting married next month. After law school, I elected to live in the suburbs, just over the city limits. I'm moving back to the city, in the Benton Park neighborhood of St. Louis. Benton Park is just south of downtown, and “up the bluff” from the Mississippi River. Benton Park is near the Anheuser-Busch brewery, and also down the street from the old Lemp Brewery. Lemp, before Prohibition, was the largest brewery in the United States.

The Lemp family also owned an interurban, the St. Louis, Columbia and Waterloo Railway, which ran from the top deck of the Eads Bridge all the way down to Waterloo in Monroe County, Illinois. The Lemp brewery did not survive Prohibition, and went out of business, failing to diversify as A-B did. The interurban line folded next. The Lemp family lived down the street from my new home in a mansion that still exists. The Lemp family was marked by several suicides, and the mansion is considered to be "haunted." The Lemp brewery facility still exists, being used for many purposes. It once had a cable railway to pull cars up the bluff from the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (MOPAC) to the brewery.