A typical suburban setting in 1958, this one of homes west of West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson. In the foreground is Lang Drive. With the addition of mature trees, the neighborhood looks much the same today. Post-Dispatch file photo
A 1929 map of St. Louis County showing its 17 incorporated cities, major roads and a few landmarks, including Creve Coeur Lake. In 1930, county population was 211,600 residents, and about half of them lived in the municipalities. Most of the land was rural. By 1950, with the postwar suburban migration booming, county population had doubled and the number of municipalities had grown to 84. Post-Dispatch file photo
Fred Wirt is sworn in during an open-air hearing in August 1937 near Creve Coeur Lake to settle a boundary dispute between two landowners. Two county justices of the peace took testimony from Wirt and others who described an old ditch that had been the boundary in 1901. When the hearing took place, most of St. Louis County remained rural land. Post-Dispatch
Highway 40 was a four-lane road west of Lindbergh Road in 1940, but it took almost three more decades to complete the highway through downtown St. Louis. Post-Dispatch file photo
Lindbergh and Ladue roads in 1942, looking west on Ladue. The intersection had been the scene of nine wrecks, one of them fatal, in the previous three years. Post-Dispatch file photo
The parking lot is full at Famous-Barr's first new suburban store in October 1948. The built the $2.7 million store on Forsyth Boulevard in Clayton. It later added stores in other locations in the county. Post-Dispatch file photo
St. Louis County employees play ball in October 1950 on a new 400-car parking lot behind the new courthouse at 7900 Forsyth Boulevard in Clayton. Voters had approved building a new courthouse in 1945 to replace one that dated to 1878 after the split between St. Louis city and county. The second courthouse now is County Police Headquarters, and the site of the lot is part of the county government plaza. Post-Dispatch file photo
Construction underway in 1952 in Hathaway Hills in Bellefontaine Neighbors, two years after the city was incorporated. Since 1950, more than 1,300 buildings had been completed in Bellefontaine Neighbors during the booming migration to the suburbs. Post-Dispatch file photo
Auxiliary Bishop John Cody breaks ground in August 1952 for a new church at St. Catherine of Sienna parish in Pagedale. The St. Louis Archdiocese built it to serve people moving quickly into the suburbs. The parish closed in 2001 after many parishioners had moved to outer suburbs. Post-Dispatch file photo
The Third Street Highway, or Interregional, when opened in October 1955. The view is looking north toward the Old Cathedral. The highway ran from downtown to Gravois Avenue at 12th Street. It was hopelessly obsolete because thousands of city residents already were moving out to the suburbs. By then, the state Highway Commission already was at work on the interstate system that exists today. Photo by Lou Phillips of the Post-Dispatch
Northland shopping center, which opened on Aug. 19, 1955, in Jennings. It beat Westroads (now Galleria) in Richmond Heights by about a week to become the first major suburban mall in St. Louis County. The Northland lot had space for 5,100 cars. Photo by Lester Linck of the Post-Dispatch
Building expressways for the new suburbs meant moving or demolishing thousands of homes in St. Louis and inner suburbs. This home at 6349 Woodland Avenue in Pine Lawn was auctioned in February 1956 so it could be moved or deconstructed to make room for the Mark Twain Expressway, now known as Interstate 70. This home sold for $1,000. Post-Dispatch file photo
The 7000 block of Lillian Avenue in Jennings in March 1957. Post-Dispatch file photo (See the same area today.)
An aerial view of the first Interstate 70 bridge over the Missouri River at St. Charles in 1957. It was opened in September 1958. The bridge helped open St. Charles County to suburban growth. Photo by Renyold Ferguson of the Post-Dispatch
An aerial view of construction on the Daniel Boone Expressway (U.S. Highway 40, later Interstate 64) cutting through St. Louis County east of Brentwood Boulevard (top center), where a completed section of Highway 40 meets a cloverleaf under construction. Hanley Road is in the foreground. The highway was connected at Hi Pointe to the former Oakland Express Highway along Forest Park in 1959. Continental Air Photos (See a satellite view of the same area today).
The intersection of Clayton Road and Brentwood Boulevard in October 1961. Traffic was a major challenge for the fast-growing suburbs, which relied upon a road system built for a largely rural St. Louis County. Post-Dispatch file photo
Site preparation in July 1962 for South County Center, which opened the following year. The view is looking to the northwest, with Lindbergh Boulevard running through it. At far left is early construction of its intersection with Interstate 55, then called the Ozark Expressway. Photo by Renyold Ferguson of the Post-Dispatch
Home construction for the Bellerive subdivision in Creve Coeur in February 1965. In the background are completed homes in the Fern Ridge subdivision. Scenes such as this were common in St. Louis County in the decades of fast suburban growth after World War II. Photo by Renyold Ferguson of the Post-Dispatch
Santa Claus makes his annual visit by helicopter at Crestwood Plaza shopping center for Christmas 1969. The mall, opened in 1957, bustled for years until the early 2000s. It closed in 2013, a victim of newer residential and retail developments farther from the urban core. Post-Dispatch file photo
This scene from December 1974 along Illinois Route 159 in Fairview Heights portrays the cluttered developments along many older roads in the greater metro area during the suburban migrations. Photo by Wayne Crosslin of the Post-Dispatch
An aerial view in 2007 of the New Town development in St. Charles, which was designed to reflect the layouts of neighborhoods back in St. Louis. It has garages in the back yards, even alleys. Photo by Karen Elshout of the Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS • This area’s second superhighway, known as the Third Street Expressway, opened in 1955 from the riverfront to Gravois Avenue at 12th Street. It ran all of 2.3 miles.
Viewed by today's standards, it was quaintly obsolete from day one. St. Louis, crammed with 856,700 residents in 1950, was losing 200 each week to new subdivisions eight and more miles beyond the Third Street Expressway’s reach. Suburban growth, slow during the Depression and World War II, exploded as people abandoned 15 years of deprivation and crowded city apartments in a rush for the good life.
Thus the booms in babies and new single-family homes surrounded by grass. St. Louis County’s population was 274,200 people when the war began. By 1960, it would top 700,000 and keep climbing.
Two other telling nuggets:
In the 10 years after the war, school-age population in the county doubled to 125,000.
In 1940, more than 55 percent of the metro’s 1.5 million people lived in the city of St. Louis. Today, it is home to only 13 percent of 2.5 million.
REAL HIGHWAYS
But first, people had to get there. Until the Third Street Expressway opened, the area’s only freeway was the Oakland Express Highway, which ran east from Hi Pointe to Vandeventer and Chouteau avenues. Farther west, traffic jams were horrendous along major roads in the formerly rural county.
St. Louis County had 20 municipalities in 1930, most of them hugging the city limit or the railroad lines. By 1950, the number had grown to 84. Adding to the patchwork were Crestwood (1947), St. Ann (1948), Bellefontaine Neighbors and Ballwin (1950), and Dellwood (1951).
To unleash the commuters, the Missouri Highway Commission proposed a pinwheel of freeways reaching out from downtown: the Mark Twain (Interstate 70) northwest into St. Charles County, the Daniel Boone (Highway 40, later I-64) straight west, and the Ozark (I-55) south into Jefferson County.
There were winners and losers. Highways to the suburbs meant obliterating thousands of homes in the city. During construction, commuters had to jump on and off finished stretches of highway. But the vision took shape. A new four-lane bridge over the Missouri River at St. Charles opened in 1958. Three years later, the Mark Twain finally ran uninterrupted to downtown with completion of the last section near Kingshighway.
In 1959, the Daniel Boone from West County was connected to the Oakland Express Highway at Hi Pointe.
DREAM HOMES AND SHOPPING MALLS
In 1940, with the Depression not yet over, St. Louis County issued 3,600 building permits. During the 1950s, more than 83,000 dwelling units were built. An additional 96,000 went up in the 1960s. The classic design was a single-family ranch home along a winding subdivision lane.
St. Charles County took longer to catch up. With only 29,800 people in 1950, it erupted after 1970 to 360,500 today — more than St. Louis city. Within Madison and St. Clair counties were strong migrations from East St. Louis and other smoky American Bottom towns to new subdivisions in and around Edwardsville, Collinsville and Belleville. Fairview Heights was founded in 1969.
Retail centers became the town squares of suburban life. It began in 1948, when Famous-Barr (now Macy’s) opened a new store on Forsyth Boulevard in Clayton. Radio stations carried the grand opening live. The department store had parking for 850 cars, central air conditioning and a three-bed infirmary.
Northland and Westroads (now Galleria) shopping centers opened in August 1955, heralding the arrival of the mall. Northland, in Jennings, had 5,100 parking spaces. Crestwood Plaza opened in 1957, South County Center in 1963, Northwest Plaza in 1965, Jamestown Mall in 1973 and St. Clair Square in 1974.
The malls ruled for a time, but ever-widening rings of residential and retail developments have been hard on the original malls. Crestwood, Northwest Plaza and Jamestown malls are history.
Tim O'Neil
Tim O'Neil is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
