Moving past this building above which has a bit of some panache, we reach the Grand Wig House, 2911, which is a bit of an institution in St. Louis. It was a cork insulation company at one point, as well as a sausage shop. Interestingly, before it was a commercial concern, a house on the site was the residence of a general named Andrew Jackson Smith. He led Union armies to victory at the Battle of Tupelo. He was also a postmaster in St. Louis and like so many other prominent citizens, he is buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery.
The building below functioned as a wing of the cork and sausage companies, but also housed a vermiculite company, as well. The classical architecture is trompe l’oeil decoration.
Now comes a row of houses demolished for parking and a vacant lot.
That house on the right below is important; you can see it in this post about the church further down. It was torn down a couple of years later.
Of course, the church as sat abandoned for years, after having been damaged in a fire last year in May. I didn’t bother photographing it again because it looks the same–like crap.
Crossing Leffingwell and temporarily going to the south side of Washington, these houses once graced the streetscape.
Crossing back over Washington is this gem of a building, at 2727, which was the G.C. Kirn Advertising Sign Company in the 1930s.
The building’s architecture seems to date itself to a few decades before that.
This last cube-like building is now the Bureau of Veterans’ Affairs.
The parking lot of that business was held these houses.
These two houses sat further to the east on the south side of Washington.
Beyond Beaumont Street (the doctor owned property in the vicinity), I looked at the buildings below back in September of 2016, and further to the east, I looked at the multicolor ones at the corner with Jefferson twice, once in June of 2011 and the other time in September of 2009.
William Greenleaf Eliot, whose house predated the Civil War and sat in a precarious location near the fortifications protecting the City of St. Louis, was on the southeast corner of the street.
This photo is simply labeled “Washington and Beaumont” and may have been the northeast or southwest corner.
