St. Louis Sidewalk Company

A few months ago, I was walking down Olive Street when I looked down and noticed this:

St. Louis Sidewalk Company - 1110 Clark Ave.

What a cool piece of history!  I had to learn more.  A visit to 1110 Clark Ave. didn’t yield anything new for me:

Former Home of the St. Louis Sidewalk Company

But Google searching brought in a little more information.  I found a reference to the company in a discussion of a lawsuit filed over a patented method of laying sidewalks (which sounds to me like the way sidewalks are laid today) invented by either two men, Kelleher and Grimm, of the St. Louis Sidewalk Company in 1892, or one man, Mayhew in 1890.  The next reference I found was to a contract to pave either the sidewalk in front of the Garfield School along Jefferson, or to pave Jefferson itself.

From Board of Public Schools Official Report - August 13th 1889

I then tracked the Garfield School down to Jefferson and Wyoming but when I visited I found that the school was built in 1936 leaving a slim chance that the original sidewalks were kept if the original school was even built on this same site.  Although I don’t have too many more leads on this particular company I will continue keeping my eye out for similar sidewalk markers that could reveal some of St. Louis’ past.  I found several other websites/blog posts related to these “sidewalk markers” including this post from Centers and Squares, and History at Our Feet: Buffalo Pavement Markers.  As much as I love to see fresh new sidewalks around the city, I now must wonder what hidden treasures may have been lost in the replacement process.  Here are the few photos I have relating to this post.