New Book Releases

For seven months in 1904, St. Louis was the greatest city on earth. Millions flocked to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition to behold the inventions of the early 20th century. Many saw electric lights, automobiles, aircraft, and moving pictures for the first time. At a time when few traveled more than a couple miles from home, visitors encountered the people and cultures of faraway lands. It was an educational experience, a "university of mankind." The Pike offered amusement rides, wild animal displays, and fanciful trips through the Hereafter and Creation exhibits. Fairgoers visited the Alps, the North Pole, Russia, and Paris and witnessed famous battles. Everyone wanted to ride the great Observation Wheel. There were hootchy-kootchy dancers and wonderful new foods, such as the ice-cream cone. But it was all temporary, a dream city made to last only a few months. With the exception of today's St. Louis Art Museum, the grand palaces are gone. St. Louis: The 1904 World's Fair tells the story of the greatest Victorian-era world's fair since the lights of the fair faded over a century ago, while also examining the fair's legacies and legends.

The Roaring Twenties was a period of lavish living in St. Louis. In 1917, when Ellsworth Statler decided to build a hotel in St. Louis, he ignited a hotel-building boom that was only quenched by the Great Depression of 1929. Architectural masterpieces arose, and local citizens and out-of-towners marveled at their grandeur. These hotels were hubs of activity and gathering places for high society. They survived the Great Depression and two world wars, but urban demise forced elegant hotels to crumble in disrepair. This book tells the intriguing stories of the Statler, the Chase, the Mayfair, the Lennox and the Coronado Hotels. Today, these hotels are restored and renewed--as glamorous now as they were in their earliest days. They welcome visitors to admire their beauty and savor the history they hold.

Missouri veterans continue to demonstrate their unwavering dedication to both the state and the nation. Theirs is a legacy that stretches forth from the Revolutionary War service of frontiersman Daniel Boone to William Clark, of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition. During the Civil War, the state became a hotbed of opposing views, as men--such as the notorious Jesse James--joined bands of guerilla fighters who fought to further the cause of the Confederacy. Years later, famed generals, such as William Tecumseh Sherman, chose the state as their final resting site following their dedicated service to the Union during the Civil War. It is a tradition emphasized by the military service of a future president, Harry S. Truman, who enlisted to serve his nation as an artillery officer in the First World War. Found in this book are the images that demonstrate many of the memorials and monuments situated throughout Missouri, highlighting the plentiful and impressive military legacy of the Show-Me State.

When St. Louis' Union Station opened to the public in 1894, nearly 10,000 people gathered to celebrate. What they saw rivaled famed stations in the East, with its barrel-vaulted ceiling, sweeping archways, and Tiffany stained-glass windows. Modeled after the walled city of Carcassone, France, Union Station was one of the busiest in the world during its heyday. Follow the history of this great architectural triumph from its original glory days through its demise and rebirth. The days of rail transportation come to life in more than 200 historic images, from steam engines hissing into the 11-acre train shed, to the perky smiles of the renowned "Harvey Girls." Union Station is also seen here as tens of thousands of passengers a day dwindled to mere hundreds. As the automobile and airplane gained momentum in the 1950s and 60s, railroading lost popularity and St. Louis' Union Station fell into disrepair and eventually closed. Now restored to its original splendor, Union Station is again a bustling center of urban entertainment and activity.

In 1927, on the northeast corner of Cherokee and Iowa Streets in south St. Louis, a multistory, multipurpose building was erected. Retail shops and a bowling alley occupied the first floor, while upstairs was a place that defied the imagination of someone driving by in their brand new Model T Ford. Today, that upstairs space, with its lofty ceiling, huge maple tongue-in-groove dance floor, and wraparound balcony, is the Casa Loma Ballroom--St. Louis' last grand ballroom. Today, one gets the feeling that the ghosts of the big bands and the vocalists still linger there--and with good reason. Just about everybody who was anybody played there at one time or another. Ol' Blue Eyes himself, before he was the idol of millions, received just a meager "Featured Singer, Frank Sinatra" note at the bottom of the Casa Loma bill the night he played with the Harry James Orchestra.