December 2020 ~ Not Good At Normal

And the connections to the Past.

Ghost Signs: “Old hand painted advertising sign that has been preserved on a building for an extended period of time”. Old and fading signs or ads on exterior walls. They are all around in every city, even on old barns along the highway in rural america. Every downtown in every city has them. You just have to be open to see them.

A happy find. Multiple layers of signs visible in the
historic Cherokee/Lemp district.

This image has multiple layers of advertising. It is located in the Lemp/ Cherokee historic district (on The Mud House).On the top is an advert for a chewing tobacco. Only the word ‘Chew’ is still available. The largest part of the sign says ‘Buettner’s’. It was a home and furnishings store in downtown in the old garment district. There is another large word toward the top that isn’t legible and a sign at the bottom looks like it says ‘cold’ and maybe ‘broadway’. That is part of the fun of these signs. Trying to read what it says and researching the products to see if it’s still in production or where it originated. The entire Washington Ave. garment district, several blocks, was nominated for the National Historic registry in 1986.

One of my favorite recent finds. This building is downtown in the old garment
district on Washington Ave, where the Buettner’s store was (a few blocks down).

The ghost signs above advertise: ‘King Bee Hats, King Brinsmade Merc. Co.’ ‘Wrigley’s Spearmint Pepsin Gum~ Trademark’ ‘Buettner’s Home Furnishing Seventh and Washington~Arrow Stamps’. Upper corner is part of the Gum ad. It says ‘Buy it by the Box~The Flavor Lasts’ and the last sign on the right is for ‘Antikamnia Tablets ~Ask for A-K Tablets’. Looks like there was a newer sign over the gum sign.

The fun part was learning about the products I’ve never heard of before. The Antikamnia Chemical Company manufactured the tablets in St. Louis from 1890 to 1930. They produced “cures” for pains using at various times heroin and quinine (now used to treat Malaria).

Beer Capital

Hyde Park beer ghost sign found in The Hill neighborhood of South St. Louis, MO.

At one time, St. Louis was known as the beer capital because of the many breweries around the area. Hyde Park Beer was one of many. This sign says “Hyde Park Bottled Beer” This Brewery was started in 1889 and closed during prohibition in 1919. The Hyde Park neighborhood was home to mostly German immigrants. The brewery was at Florissant and Salsbury in North St. Louis. They were sold and after prohibition ended opened again in 1933, they also once produced Stagg beer. The routing of the interstate through the middle of the area has left the once thriving area impoverished.

Another Hyde Park Bottled beer sign
at the corner of Salisbury and N. 20.

Ghost Sign visible under the Mural for Hyde Park. Both of these signs border the Park by the same name. Salisbury and Blair Ave.

Green Tree Beer one of the larger brewery in the late 1880’s in St. Louis.

More Beer Ghost Signs

This whole article isn’t about beer, but what history of STL can one tell without the illustrious past. The Lemp Beer Factory is without a doubt on of the most well known, besides Budweiser, but Bud is still going strong, so I don’t have ghost signs of that advertising.

Originally the Lemp smoke stack, the tile coated bricks
were arranged to spell ISCO when the factory was
bought by the International Shoe Co. Yes, this is a ghost sign.

The Falstaff beer logo, (part of the Lemp products) still visible, on the south side of the city.

The Lemp family came to St. Louis in 1864, when William J. Lemp built the brewery near the Mississippi River, which had several caves in the area in which to keep the beer cold. The Lemp family has had many tragedies, early deaths and suicides are the legacy that is left of the once great beer baron.

You can tour the Lemp Mansion and book an overnight stay if you are brave enough. It’s said to be haunted. Or you can go for lunch or a four course dinner. After the family lost interest in the business and prohibition began, the complex was sold to the International Shoe Company and was for a time, the largest shoe manufacture in the world.

Other beverages

This sign is now in an alley behind an ice cream
shop in the Tower Grove area.

Least you think beer is the only advertising in the area, we see many signs for Coca Cola, the refreshing drink once made with cocaine from the coca leaf, where the Coca part of the name is from. Ghost signs are found everywhere. Some are ‘hidden’ behind other buildings or in alleys that over time have obstructed what was once visible street.

This next sign is completely hidden in an alley in the Bevo neighborhood. The alley was 18 inches wide, just enough for me to use the wide angle on the camera.

The word ‘Cream’ is visible and above it, a ‘W’ and ‘H’?

Some signs advertise local businesses and some nationally known brand products. The paints used in these early signs were mixed by the sign painters, usually with a mix of white pigment made with lead. The men that hand painted these signs were called Wall Dogs. The paint used was made to last a lifetime, sometimes longer! Its no wonder why there are so many that are faded or painted over. Someone buys a business and wants to put their own stamp on it, freshen up the outside. That is how we get some signs with more than three layers visible.

This sign was lost for over 100 years behind a building that crumbled and fell leaving this beauty behind. The Pattison Whisky Co. was only in production for a few years. The Star Saloon and Cafe opened during that time.

The works of art were visible from high above and ground level, easy to see by those on foot and horse and carriage. Then later the early automobiles.

Enjoy the rest of the photos. More will be added as I come across more!

Two old signs left on the
renovated Sun Theater in the
Grand Center Arts District.

Panda Paints ghost sign is on every
corner of the ole St. Louis Paint
Manufacturing Co.

1903 B+R Dry Goods, Close outs of Nationally Advertised Brands

Can’t find any info on this one found in the Cherokee/Lemp area.

Sign left on the building now known as the Knickerbocker lofts.

Not all ghost signs are painted. The business is
long gone, but the sign remains.

Gold Medal Flour and May and Sons Groceries and Meats advert.

Where are some of your favorite old ghost signs? Like and share, subscribe for more fun and historic content.

How Hedy Lamarr and the Metoo movement collide.

Hedy Lamarr was almost the most important inventor time forgot. Let’s remember a time, not so long ago when Hollywood and the world, i.e. men, didn’t give credit to women for being smart, or for anything for that matter.

Coming to America

image via MGM pictures: Hedy Lamarr in the MGM classic “Ziegfeld Girl” in the famous star costume.

In 1937 Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler came to America from Vienna, Austria, her birthplace. She had starred in a few films, one being the scandalous “Extase (Ecstasy)” when she was just 18 years old. Hedy was born in 1914 and was married and divorced before leaving her homeland for the lights of tinseltown.

The Glamor

By the 1930’s Hollywood’s glamor machine was in full swing. The ‘Studio system’ was churning out hundreds of movies every month and if you wanted to be a star, you played by their rules. The studio was not only where you worked but it was your life. They told you how to look, where to go to be seen and with whom. You were expected to appear in as many films per year as possible. You would have a seven year contract to which the studio owned you as their property and if they made you into a star, they would go to any length to keep you a star. This often meant being seen on arranged dates or they would give the stars strict diets to adhere to.

Hollywood was not for the faint at heart. You had to follow the studios every directive and that included the casting couch. Directors, producers and those in charge would make women sleep with them or give special favors in order to get a part. This practice remained a well known fact and was allowed to happen until very recently.

More Stars than there are in Heaven

MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) was one of the biggest and most successful of all the movie studios in Hollywood. It was a successful merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Studios and Louis B. Mayer studios. At its head in the early years were Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg as head of production. LB would proclaim to be the biggest studio and have the most stars. It was home to some of Hollywood’s biggest and brightest. In the 30’s it was where Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Mickey Rooney, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy and Judy Garland gained fame. It was here, at MGM that Hedwig became Hedy Lamarr.

The Beauty that Changed the World

The world’s most beautiful woman, and one of the smartest!

She was billed as the most beautiful woman in the world. The world didn’t know it yet, but this woman was much more than that. With an IQ of 150+, she regularly invented items and took things apart to find out what made them work.

It was during WWII, at a party one evening with an equally intelligent composer, George Antheil, she set out to form a way to jam frequencies so that torpedo locations could not be found by the enemies. They invented frequency hopping communication and had a patent placed on the invention. This later formed the bases for wireless technology used today in bluetooth and WiFi. She grew tired of the Hollywood scene, playing the exotic femme fatale and having everyone think she was window dressing. She would say anyone can stand and look pretty, even stupid people.

Admired as the most beautiful woman in the world,
not for her intellect.

No one believed she was the inventor of such magnitude. Some claimed she stole the idea. Some said she was too pretty to be smart. Still others said she was a spy.

My #metoo story that I’ve never shared with anyone before!

Hollywood isn’t the only industry that uses or takes advantage of women or thinks a woman can’t think for herself. So many stories of how women are treated when they walk into an auto part store. Or when a woman owns a show car and enters it into shows, most of the guys ask her where her husband or boyfriend is so they can talk to him about it. Or when a customer asks for the manager and they are talking to her, a young lady. My Aunt was told she couldn’t be hired because she was of the age where she would be starting a family!

Me Too

Take Kim, she was in the only female student enrolled in a fire academy. One of the recruits pinned her on the ground and tried to kiss her as the others watched. She was able to knee him and get away, earning the respect of the other students. I have to say that should never happen. Ever. Being the only woman in a male dominated work environment, like Amber and Jamie and Tory. The girls were told to only do certain jobs and leave the hard or heavy work to the men. Talked about behind your back because you are a woman. Double standards.

My own story was as an 18 year old working at my first radio station and working closely with an older man who was showing me the ropes. He kissed me without provocation or wanting from my part.

Hedy Lamarr was paid less then her male counterparts. She wasn’t given the proper credit for her invention until decades later, and she died at 85, in 2000, without much money. It was only recently that people and Hollywood are taking notice of the beauty with the high IQ. Hedy Lamarr was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame posthumously in 2014.

Your turn

What are some of the ways you have experienced or seen a situation that you were treated different because of your sex or you were taken advantage of and told you need to do or act or wear something in order to get a job or keep one? Tell your story in the comments.

Month: December 2020

Ghost Signs (mostly of St.Louis)