100 years young

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(by Kara Krekeler - June 18, 2008)

While his neighbors were celebrating Maplewood’s centennial last weekend, longtime resident Doug Houser was schlepping a heavy box around the city, hoping to unload a few books.

Earlier this year, history buffs Houser and Joyce Cheney produced The First 100 Years, a book commemorating their hometown’s centennial. The book is filled with historical information, including photos and surprising anecdotes about the unassuming inner-ring suburb.

Hauser, who moved to the city from University City in 1975, said that he was astonished to find out about Maplewood’s connection to everything from the construction of the Sears Tower and World Trade Center to the landmark Roe v. Wade case in the U.S. Supreme Court (which was jointly financed by the Maplewood-based Sunnen Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation).

“Every community ought to undertake a project like this,” Houser said. “We uncovered so much. It just made me wonder — is every small town like this, or is Maplewood something special?”

Where’s the fire?

Even though Maplewood has been a city since 1908, the area has a much longer history. In 1819, James Sutton moved to St. Louis to help out at his brother’s blacksmith shop in downtown St. Louis, and in 1826 he built himself a log cabin on land he had purchased outside city limits. His house sat near what is now Commonwealth Avenue in southern Maplewood.

Not long after Sutton settled in what would one day be Maplewood, Manchester Road opened as a route between St. Louis and Jefferson City. A keen businessman, Sutton opened a blacksmith shop of his own along the road and made a successful business for himself there.

Around the same time, attorney and former state senator Charles Rannells bought a large portion of land to the west of Sutton’s land; between the two of them, they owned almost all the property that currently makes up Maplewood, Houser said.

At least that was the case until 1877, when Sutton died. His property was split among his heirs, and several of them sold the land to developers. One of the resulting housing projects, bound by Marietta, Sutton, Marshall and Elm, was named Maplewood and became the city’s namesake when it incorporated in 1908.

Houser said there had been discussions about incorporation in Maplewood for quite some time, but it wasn’t until a lumber company based at the corner of Manchester Road and Sutton Avenue burned down in January 1908 that the drive for incorporation really picked up steam. Maplewood citizens were unhappy with how the St. Louis County fire department responded to the blaze, which consumed nine buildings.

So in May 1908, the city of Maplewood was born, primarily so its residents could control their own fire response.

Goldie’s years

In its early years, Maplewood grew quickly, becoming a popular family neighborhood that was touted for its fresh air and close proximity to downtown St. Louis. It also became a popular shopping district, drawing visitors from throughout the metro area.

“Maplewood was a big shopping center,” said Dave Sivcovich, who has lived in Maplewood since 1929. “On Friday nights, it was so busy you couldn’t walk the streets.”

Sivcovich moved to the city with his parents and siblings in 1929 and after moving a few times within the city, settled in a home on Zephyr Place in 1933. Sivcovich later bought the house from his parents, married the girl who lived next door and lives there to this day.

Talking from his longtime home, the 89-year-old Sivcovich reminisced about Maplewood before World War II, remembering how the three trolley lines that ran through the city would bring hordes of shoppers and other visitors to the bustling shopping district.

Of course, everything couldn’t stay pleasant forever. During the war, the trolleys stopped running through Maplewood and their rails were eventually removed for use in the war effort, Sivcovich said. After the war, Maplewood began slowly sliding from its pre-war popularity into an economic slump that became the bleakest in the 1970s.

“There’s a tendency not to want to discuss that part of the history,” Houser said.

Like many other inner-ring suburbs and the city of St. Louis itself, Maplewood suffered as people took their new cars and moved west to settle in new suburbs that were popping up, Houser said. What had once been a bustling shopping district began losing stores and customers, but it wasn’t until Goldie’s department store, the anchor of the retail neighborhood, burned down in 1966 that the city seemed beyond salvation to many of its own residents.

“When [the owners of Goldie’s] decided not to rebuild here, it helped spur the deterioration of the business district,” Houser said. “That was the turning point in a lot of people’s minds.”

It certainly was for Sivcovich, who had watched as one business after another closed up shop. “When Goldie’s moved out, it killed the shopping district. That was the real draw for people,” he said, adding that he remembered discussions about redeveloping the Manchester strip from Oakland to Big Bend occurring not long after the department store burned down.

Houser said that the 1970s were also plagued with a spate of poor policy decisions and inept mayors, including one who was recalled and another who resigned. “There was an enormous amount of corruption,” he said.

‘Pax Corcorana’

But in the early 1980s, things started looking up for the city once again. Around that time, the city elected the young upstart Andy Hummert as its mayor, and the city government switched from a commission system to its current form of government, which gives most of the governing power to the Board of Aldermen and city manager rather than the mayor.

Houser said that the switch wasn’t an easy one, but it was certainly helped along by the hiring of City Manager Marty Corcoran, who still holds that position more than 25 years later.

“All the bad stuff ended. It’s been quiet since he’s been here,” Houser said of Corcoran, adding that he had trouble finding notable headlines from the past 25 years due to the rebuilding period that followed Corcoran’s hiring. “It’s a significant thing he’s accomplished here in Maplewood.”

In fact, Houser was so impressed by the city’s rapid turnaround in the 1980s and 90s that he playfully named the last section of The Last 100 Years “Pax Corcorana” — a reference to Pax Romana, a peaceful period of the Roman Empire that lasted through the first and second centuries A.D.

Corcoran, however, said he thinks Houser is giving him too much credit. True, the city had serious internal problems before Corcoran was hired in September 1983, and within a few years of his hiring had a much more stable government and city staff, but Corcoran said a large portion of the credit should go to the elected officials who were determined to find a city manager and work hard to get the city back on its feet.

“Do I deserve some of the credit? Yes, but I truly believe I get a lot more credit than I deserve,” he said, adding that none of the rebuilding would have been possible without elected officials dedicated to working together.

Corcoran said that Sunnen Corporation also deserves recognition for helping stabilize the community by founding the Maplewood Community Betterment Foundation, which started working with the local business
community and eventually spawned the Maplewood Chamber of Commerce.

In fact, when it comes to Maplewood’s renaissance, Corcoran will claim just two accomplishments: getting the city staff to work as a team and convincing Schlafly to build its Bottleworks in the city five years ago.
“Schlafly was the catalyst to kick off the growth,” he said. “They gave the downtown area an anchor. After they moved in, the rest of downtown came in.”

As for the future of the suburb, Corcoran said that he anticipates a small developmental lull due to the current tough economy, but added that he is convinced that Maplewood will continue to see growth in both the business community — particularly along Hanley and possibly Big Bend — and in residential development.
“Along Manchester and Sutton, we’re going to see offices being converted into residential because of the walkability [of the area], especially if gas prices keep doing what they’re doing,” he said. “But then, Maplewood’s always been a walkable community.”

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