St. Louis is a city that is proud of its history. By 1904, we were the fourth largest city in the United States, host to the World’s Fair (or Louisiana Purchase Expedition) and location of the first Olympics held in America. In the first century and a half of the city’s existence, settlers passed through the Gateway to the West by steamboat or wagon. Some came to stay, making their livelihood working on the levee or on the deck of a steamboat in the City’s thriving river trade, in the clay pits or as bricklayers, or perhaps even in breweries that would go on to be household names like Anheuser-Busch. Prosperity seemed to be on the horizon. The 1947 City Plan even predicted that 900,000 people would live in the City (vs. the County) by 1970.
This forecast turned out to be overly optimistic. Black migration from the South added to the city’s population slowly, but it could not compete with the flood of white people escaping to the County. They were moving alongside stores and jobs, taking newly completed highways. They were fleeing deteriorating houses and neighborhoods that had once been home to the notable names of St. Louis and their fellow members of the upper- and middle-classes.
In short, they were going where African Americans couldn’t follow them. Racially restricted housing restrictions locked most non-whites out of the County and into the most derelict areas of the City. Massive urban renewal campaigns that spanned decades and declared areas blighted left and right wholesale ignored the poorest and most rundown areas in favor of downtown and the old industrial hubs.
This deplorable pattern leaves me wondering, which histories do we consider most important? Why are some considered the central narrative and others are pushed to the side, almost like a local history elective?
The answer is clear in regards to the present day people of St. Louis. The actions of the St. Louis City renewal authorities blatantly show that they valued the lives of the white people they had lost to the County more than the black people living within their borders. Every move they made was a calculated attempt to entice white people to move back or at least shop, dine, and be entertained downtown.
Just as these officials showed little to no respect for black lives, they showed no respect for black history. A prime example is Mill Creek Valley, a historically black neighborhood that had thrived in the early 20th century and had been called the heart of black St. Louis. It, like much of St. Louis’s black population, was struggling in the 1950s. Instead of using federal money and urban renewal energy to try to make a change and resurrect the neighborhood, it was completely leveled starting in 1959, scattering the residents into other blighted neighborhoods in North St. Louis or into pockets of the County that did not block them out.
Nestled between 20th Street and Grand, running from Olive Street to the train tracks, Mill Creek Valley was the very soul of African American St. Louis. Ragtime had thundered out of its clubs and caught fire as a nationally recognized genre of music. Josephine Baker was born here – she had once performed for pennies outside of the Booker T. Washington Theatre, one of the first theaters created by black people for black people in the United States. The local bank was black-owned. Black doctors set up shop in the neighborhood and black lawyers opened offices.
Over several years spanning the 1950s and 60s, Mill Creek Valley was wiped off the map. The land where it stood was unrecognizable. To add insult to injury, redevelopment in the area stalled and the land lay vacant. Locals began to call it “Hiroshima Flats,” comparing it to an atomic wasteland. Only a few pieces of the neighborhood survived the bulldozers – a few churches and a few schools. St. Louis destroyed a cultural enclave and in the process destroyed a crucial part of its history as a city. Mill Creek Valley isn’t remembered alongside the World’s Fair and the golden era at the height of the steamboat trade and in my opinion, that is a real shame. The memory of Mill Creek Valley lingers, waiting to be resurrected, waiting to claim its place as an important part of St. Louis history.
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