We do quite a bit of genealogical research here, and it is always fun when you can use your wits to force the past to give up its secrets. This recent example might interest our readers: we have the below photograph of a bakery that was owned by one of our ancestors named Henry Fedder. The photo was taken around 1912, so everyone who is in the photo, or knew something about it, has passed away. The challenge was to find this building, which we knew was in the city of St. Louis somewhere, but the exact location has been lost to time.
Zooming in on the photo reveals the number 5800 above the front door. An attempt was made to simply search for 5800 in the street address database, but it did not return any useful results. It was possible that the building no longer existed, so the address itself may have simply been gone. But then, a small stroke of luck. Searching for Henry Fedder in old newspapers yielded a large number of results, most of which were property transfer announcements when land or buildings were bought or sold. A single entry on June 7, 1912, showed that he had paid for a building permit for the bakery at 5800 North Market Street. Now we were getting somewhere.
We knew the address of the building, however, the description of the property that was sold said it was on the southwest corner of North Market Street and Goodfellow – an intersection that no longer exists today – and given the local penchant for renaming streets (sometimes in the middle of their length – witness how many different ways we refer to Lindbergh Boulevard), this wasn’t going to be easy. First, it’s important to know that North St. Louis was at one time a village separate and distinct from the city of St. Louis. And North St. Louis also had a Market Street that ran through town straight to the public wharf on the riverfront. This North Market Street still exists, but it’s not as long as it used to be.
Second, it was very helpful to find a collection of old street maps on the St. Louis Public Library’s site, including this one from 1896 (pictured above). This map shows the original path of North Market Street (a portion of which, we later learned from other newspapers, was renamed to Wabada Avenue around 1926) and shows that it did in fact intersect Goodfellow. Once we had this bit of information, it was relatively easy to find the plot of ground where the building once stood. Further searches for this new address – 5800 Wabada Avenue – revealed that the bakery was eventually converted to a tavern and remained so for a few decades until the owner ran into tax problems in the 1960s. Sadly, it is a vacant lot today, but at least the mystery of where the photo was taken has been solved.
But we’re not done! Because Henry Fedder had more than one bakery and we also have a photo of a second location (below). The number on the door of this building is 2841. We knew from our previous newspaper searches that the Fedder family owned several plots at the intersection of Union Boulevard and St. Louis Avenue, so we started there. We got lucky again, because this building appears to be still standing and in current use. Based on the strong similarities (including the second-floor facade which is identical) we believe that the event venue at 2841 Union Blvd is the 100-year-old remains of our ancestor’s second bakery.
Very interesting. Great sleuthing!