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Gateway to the West



ST. LOUIS, MO
 MAY 17–23, 2006

Featured Destination for the VSA’s Annual Meeting May 17th to May 23rd, 2006.

Pre-Tour Wednesday, May 17th (day)
Opening Reception  Wednesday, May 17th (eve.)
Annual Meeting  Thursday thru Saturday, May 18th to 20th
Post-Tour  Sunday and Monday, May 21st and 22nd

St. Louis Brochure

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THE OFFICIAL 2006
ST. LOUIS PHOTO CD-ROM

280 superb digital images on one disk professionally prepared by Bob Chapman.

Obtain your copy for a $40 donation to the VSA Summer Schools.

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
 

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VSA members had the opportunity to sign up for a visit to a city that blends warm Midwestern hospitality with languorous Southern charm. Tower Grove Park and the St. Louis chapter of the VSA will host the next annual meeting of the Society from May 17th to May 22nd 2006.

 St. Louis in the Victorian Era

 Established as a French trading post on the western banks of the Mississippi River as early as 1764 at the behest of French trader Pierre LeClede and others, the choice of St. Louis’s site was dictated by the realities of topography.  Indeed, the nucleus of the City’s grid street system was set atop a hill high above the floodwaters of the river. In 1830 French was still the prevailing language in St. Louis, but during the subsequent antebellum period English speakers settled in great numbers.  The population of the city mushroomed from 5,900 in 1830 to 78,000 by 1850. In 1849 a cholera epidemic wiped out a significant percentage of the population and a fire destroyed the commercial center, but despite these set-backs in 1850 St. Louis managed to surpass Cincinnati in terms of steamboat tonnage, emerging as the leading city along the Ohio-Mississippi axis.  

Although St. Louis escaped physical damage during the Civil War, the unprecedented hostilities cut the City off from its traditional Southern markets. The development of Chicago as a railroad center after the war drew trade away from St. Louis. Despite set-backs that would have demoralized a less resilient municipality, St. Louis was still a major urban American center by any measure, boasting the nation’s largest grain market, the largest inland cotton market, a major meat packing center, and a leading manufacturer of shoes and beer. By the turn-of-the-twentieth century the City was nearing the zenith of its powers as a dynamic focus for national commerce and industry. The city’s chemical industry was given a boost in 1899 by the establishment of the Monsanto Company, manufacturers of saccharin. In that same year it was announced to the world that five years hence St. Louis would be host to the largest World’s Fair up until that time. The St. Louis Fair even surpassed Chicago’s Columbian exposition of 1893 in terms of size and sheer spectacle. The 1904 Fair attracted a diverse array of states and countries that erected almost 1,600 buildings and 19 million people visited the fair. “Meet Me in St. Louis,” the song made famous by Judy Garland in the period piece movie of the same name, will soon be warbled by VSA members and friends bound for the ‘Gateway to the West’ next May. While many of you may remember the wonderful VSA Annual Meeting held in St. Louis in 1989, every effort has been made by the planners of the 2006 meeting to showcase historic properties not featured sixteen years ago.  

The Pre-Tour on Wednesday, May 17th will visit Louisiana, Missouri, a unique old Mississippi River town. John Karel, Director of Tower Grove Park, will provide commentary on Louisiana and other towns encountered during the tour. Afterward, a brief respite at the hotel will be followed by the opening reception. 

 Scheduled for the morning of Thursday, May 18th is a tour of the lone survivor from the glory days of Lucas Place as a fashionable residential quarter. Built in 1851, the Campbell House was purchased by fur trader extraordinaire Robert Campbell in 1854. The house has recently completed a major restoration, with interiors interpreted to the 1880s.

 Following our in-depth tour of the Campbell House, Carolyn Toft, Executive Director of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, will lead the group on a walking tour of downtown St. Louis, with visits to the Albert B. Mullet-designed Post Office and Court House with a lunch stop at LeClede’s Landing near the Eero Saarinen-designed Gateway Arch (1948-1964).  After lunch we will experience Lafayette Square, St Louis’s first Victorian suburb. Founded in 1836 on the common fields once tilled by French settlers, the area became host to handsome post Civil War stone townhouses designed in a variety of historic architectural styles. The evening’s reception and dinner will be held at Tower Grove Park and the Piper Palm House, respectively.

 On Friday, May 19th, the focus of the morning itinerary will be a tour of St. Louis churches, followed by a private luncheon at the Mahler Ballroom—also the venue for the VSA’s Annual Business Meeting. Following tours of Compton Heights and Flora Place, the group will return to the hotel to get ready for a visit to the Chatillon-de Menil Mansion, an 1849 farm house that attained the appearance of a Greek Revival mansion by 1863, where we will dine at the Carriage House Restaurant.

 The morning of Saturday, May 20th will find the group touring Tower Grove and vicinity, complete with visits to a number of beautiful mansions along with additional delights. The gardens, green houses, gazebos and gate houses of Tower Grove will be a major highlight of the VSA’s tour program.  The day’s festivities will end with a gala dinner and the closing of the silent auction.

 From Sunday, May 21 to Monday, May 22 the post-conference tour will showcase Jefferson City, the state’s capital (1915-1917) as well as Missouri’s Rhineland.  The German-American wine producing towns we will visit include Holstein, Dutzon, Augusta and Hermann. Founded in 1838 by members of the German Settlement Society of Philadelphia, Hermann retains many handsome brick structures designed in the German Neoclassical and vernacular styles. From 1847 until Prohibition, the second largest winery in the United States was located in Hermann. In addition, we will view reminders of French control of the region in the towns of Labadu and Chamois.

 On our way back to St. Louis our group will visit Westminster College at Fulton, Missouri, scene of Winston Churchill’s famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in 1946. Almost twenty years later the college erected a memorial to Churchill in the form of a rebuilt twelfth century London Church that was redesigned by Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of 1666. Gutted by German bombs in 1940, the reassembled church is currently used as a nondenominational place of worship. The bus will return to St. Louis via the Lambert Field Airport.