Webster Groves Historic Walks
The Historic Webster Walk series showcases the unique historical and architectural heritage of Webster Groves, Missouri. With names like Pierre Chouteau, Artemus Bullard and Ulysses S. Grant woven into its past, Webster Groves is an outdoor museum, providing an opportunity for people to walk through 200 years of history.
In 1802, Gregoire Sarpy, a frenchman who married into the Chouteau family, obtaining the rustic wooded land that is now Webster Groves from the Spanish colonial government. In 1842, the land was divided and Sarpy's son, John, received the north 360 acres, and Pierre Chouteau, Jr. received the south 1640 acres. The dividing line became Lockwood Avenue.
Through the years, Webster Groves has accumulated a wide variety of architectural styles, as old buildings were preserved and newer structures were built. In residential areas, many large original lots have been subdivided creating infill housing dating back to the early 1900s. The result is an interesting mix of homes and businesses, churches and schools that reflects the continuing living history of Webster Groves.
Heart of Webster Walk
This Historic Webster Walk is a 2.3 mile tour through a rich collection of Victorian Architecture. The walk features the early businesses, homes, and people that formed the foundation of Webster Groves. (Italianate Home to the right)
Begin your walk in downtown Webster Groves, in front of Webster Records, 117 W. Lockwood Avenue. Take a moment to look up and down this merchant-lined street, a main thoroughfare of Webster Groves for more than 100 years.
Today, 21st century businesses thrive in 19th century buildings with newer structures tucked in between. This is the heart of Webster Groves, where businesses first sprang up around the railroad. Early residents built their homes, churches, and schools surrounding this commercial nucleus. Nothing better illustrates the close relationship between businesses, homes and the people who built them than the William H. Gore House directly across the street at 132-36 W. Lockwood Avenue. It is a microcosm of Webster Groves history in itself.
Heart of Webster Walk Site Overview: 68 buildings listed
A Walk In The Park
Inspired by Edward Joy's Old Orchard Park of 1889 to the east and Lilburn McNair's Tuxedo Park of 1890 to the north, a group of prominent Webster Groves businessmen established the Webster Real Estate Company in 1891. The next year they purchased the Payne Tract, north of Lockwood and west of Bompart. Several of them had already built large Queen Anne houses on speculation to attract other successful businessmen and their families to Webster Groves. (Queen Anne home to the left)
The Webster Real Estate Company laid out 210 large lots: no commercial buildings could be built within the park and each house had to be at least two stories and cost a minimum of $3,000.
*1892 three Queen Anne homes built
*By 1897 only seven homes had been built in the Park
*1903 nine hole Algonquin Golf Club built
*1904-1910 forty-six homes built
*1910-1920 twenty-seven homes built
*1920's seventy-three homes built
The architecture of Webster Park represents fine examples of a variety of styles. The oldest houses in the Park are large, elaborate Queen Anne houses. They are followed by Shingle Style, American Foursquare, Tudor Revival, Colonial Revival, Craftsman, and Spanish Colonial Revival houses, many designed by the prominent St. Louis architects of the turn of the century.
The Historic Webster Walk is a 2.7 mile tour through the tree-lined, meandering streets of Webster Park. The entire walk is paved and covers flat to gently sloping terrain.
Walk In The Park Site Overview: 52 buildings listed
A New Century in Old Orchard
Old Orchard draws its name from the apple and peach orchards that lined the Indian trail to the Big Bend in the Meramec River in the mid-19th century. In the spring the blossoms transformed the orchards into fairyland, and in the fall the orchards smelled like
cider.
This Historic Webster Walk is a 2.4 mile tour through the commercial, educational and residential areas of Old Orchard. (Greek Revival Home on the right)
Old Orchard Site Overview: 50 buildings listed
The Ridge at Rock Hill
Long before it was parceled into grand estates and later into subdivisions, the American Indians called the high land rising up above Shady Grove Creek "Dry Ridge." The ridge ran north and south across the land that John & James Marshall purchased in 1832 and across part of the Sarpy Tract that Pierre Chouteau Jr. subdivided in 1845. Bare and exposed in the hot sun, the land provided beautiful vistas.
It is no wonder then that some of the first St. Louis businessmen to build homes in the area chose to build along Dry Ridge now called Rock Hill Road. The Missouri Pacific Railroad opened the area to commuters in 1853 and Bullard's Webster College for Boys opened that same year.
In the later 1880s, retired businessmen living in Webster Groves began to subdivide their estates and build large, frame Queen Anne houses for their children or as speculative ventures to attract other successful businessmen to Webster Groves. Webster Groves was becoming a suburb.
This Historic Webster Walk is a 2.2 mile walk that will lead you through a wonderfully diverse collection of 19th & 20th century architecture, one of the trademarks of this community.
The Ridge at Rock Hill Site Overview: 33 buildings listed
Steps In Time: Northwest Webster
Northwest Webster is a window into the history and culture of this community. Its eclectic neighborhoods represent a convergence of the wealthy and the working class, as well as farmland and the earliest subdivisions. In many ways the area is a universe of westward expansion. As Americans moved west, development in this region was fueled by the growth of the railroad in the mid-1850s and the building boon that followed the Civil War. (Queen Anne Home)
The oldest streets of Northwest Webster are influenced by its topography. The Rock Hill Military Road was laid out along the top of a ridge running south from Manchester Road to Jefferson Barracks. Kirkham Avenue, originally called Shady Avenue, follows Shady Creek, along the base of a steep hill, Gore Avenue, once called Church Street, was originally a path that early settlers blazed as a short cut to Rock Hill Presbyterian Church.
In the 1880s a housing boom began in earnest in Webster Groves. Frame Queen Anne houses for commuters were built throughout the community. In Northwest Webster smaller Victorian vernacular houses were constructed between the larger homes. Most families did a little farming, raising fruit, vegetables and chickens.
The city incorporated in 1896, and the Kirkwood Ferguson Streetcar Line was built along Kirkham Avenue and Shady Creek to Glendale and Kirkwood. It became a popular commuter route to the 1904 World's Fair and Washington University.
This Historic Webster Walk is a 2.2 mile tour that traces some of the key events and sites that defined early Webster Groves and continue to influence the community today.
Northwest Webster Site Overview: 37 buildings listed