A Place of Many Names - Eighth Street Yard, Castle Thunder, Wild Cat Chute

When researching the neighborhoods your ancestors lived in, it's important to know all the names the area was known by. Sometimes there were many.

My second great-grandfather, Selig Feinstein, resided in the city of St. Louis, Missouri at 1122 North Eighth Street in 1900 with his family. (Including his mother, wife, and seven children). According to the census he was the owner of the building, and in addition to his 10-member family, 26 other individuals lived at the same address. Two of those 26 were Selig's sister, Rebecca, and her husband, Reuben Portnoy. The other 24 were, to my knowledge, unrelated, but all immigrated to America from Russia. They lived in the tenement district. The 1908 Civic League of St. Louis Report - Housing Conditions in St. Louis - provides a detailed description of the neighborhood.

A couple years ago I discovered that the block where the Feinstein family lived was also known as the Eighth Street Yard, and was well-known for criminal activity in the 1880s and 1890s. Newspaper stories about the address stop prior to 1900.

The Eighth Street Yard isn't the only term reporters used for the area. It took me a while to realize this, but the reporters occasionally wrote in the residents' dialect, so I found a few news stories by searching for "Ate Street Yard."

Another colorful phrase they used, as the article below points out, was "Wild Cat Chute."

De Ate Street Yard (8th Street Yard)

Article from Jul 31, 1892 St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri)

The building next door, comprising 1124, 1126, and 1128 North Eighth Street, was known as Castle Thunder. (Named after a Confederate prison in Virginia.). The 1882 article below provides its entire history, from when it was built, and through a series of owners.

History of St. Louis's Castle Thunder

Article from Jul 20, 1882 St. Louis Globe-Democrat (St. Louis, Missouri)

 The below article provides some sketches of the inside of "Castle Thunder," and some vivid descriptions. While the article is from 1884, a good fifteen years before my ancestors may have moved in, and the Castle Thunder building was next door to the one Selig Feinstein and his family lived in, from the 1908 Housing Report on the tenements, I suspect the conditions were similar.

Sketches and Description of Castle Thunder

Article from Dec 6, 1884 St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri)

The 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance map provides the layout of the block. I believe the pink buildings are made of stone or brick, while the yellow are wood frame. The map shows how 1124, 1126, and 1128 are all one building. That's Castle Thunder. The empty space between the tenements is the Eighth Street Yard. By the 1910 census my second great-grandfather is no longer living at 1122, however, his sister Shprintze (Sylvia) Babchick and her family is. 

I've written past posts on the conditions in the tenements. 

It's disturbing to think about the squalor my ancestors lived in. However, I am proud of and thankful for their ability to climb their way out of those conditions.

Who Cleaned Up The Eighth Street Yard?

What was the Eighth Street Yard? 

St. Louis Globe Democrat, November 14, 1892

The police of the Third District are constantly annoyed by rows between whites and blacks in what is known as the Eighth Street Yard. This yard,  which covers nearly a half block, is situate on Eighth street, between Carr and Biddle.

St Louis Post Dispatch, January 6, 1895

There are only four blocks in this territory, but within its sacred precincts are located Castle Thunder and the Eighth Street Yard, both of which have done more than their share toward making local history...It is one of the hardest beats in the city, and for one man to walk it alone at night would be an extremely hazardous undertaking.

Where exactly was the Eighth Street Yard? The first clipping above says it covered half a block on Eighth Street between Carr and Biddle. The clipping below provides an address.

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 6, 1893

1122 North Eighth. The tenement my 2nd great grandfather, Selig Feinstein, lived in, and owned, according to the 1900 census. The Eighth Street Yard appears a lot in the news between 1890-1895. Then it disappears. 

When and how was the 8th Street Yard, one of the toughest police beats, cleaned up? When did Selig Feinstein purchase the address? What was his role? In the early 1890s he is listed in city directories as residing on Seventh Street, but working as a shoer/blacksmith at 1106 North Eighth. So he would naturally have had an incentive to move to the same block he worked. Once he owned the property, did he just kick out the rowdy residents and recruit new ones?

I hoped to get to the library this weekend to research deeds on microfilm, to pinpoint the exact year he purchased the property, and whether he purchased any other property in the area. There is some family lore that he may have.  I do know that he went into the Real Estate business with his children starting in 1905, but he may have been a landlord of multiple properties before then. It doesn't look like I will get to the library this weekend due to weather and other factors. Maybe next weekend. 

1122 North Eighth Street, 1900

In the 1900 Census my second great grandparents Selig and Annie (Perlik) Feinstein, their seven children, and Selig's mother Gertie were living at 1122 North Eighth Street in St. Louis, Missouri. They were in the front section, and are listed in the census as the owners. In the rear were several families: The Finkelsteins, Buchmans, Portnoys, and Shparbergs.  There were also several individuals - Sarah Freeman, Samuel Feingold, Morris Klingermann, Charles Mutsnick, and Wolf Simon. In total, there were 36 people residing at 1122 North 8th. 10 in the front, 26 in the rear. The country of origin for all adults was Russia.

Over the years I've written several entries on the Carr Square Neighborhood, and on the subsection called Little Jerusalem. Over the last week I decided to start with the families at 1122, and see what I could find out about their descendants. The term FAN Principle (Friends, Associates, Neighbors), credited to Elizabeth Shown Mills, is somewhat applicable. However, my primary intent wasn't to find out more about my ancestors through researching their neighbors. I was genuinely interested in what happened to the families living with my ancestors in the tenement.

Most of the single boarders are difficult to trace. I already knew that Rebecca Portnoy was Selig's sister, and she and her husband were childless. My new database after a week of researching Ancestry Hints is up to 275. A good proportion are the descendants of my second great grandparents, but unrelated surnames include Bernhardt, Buchman, Finkelstein, Friedman, Green, Kanefield, Klayman, Safron, Shcolnik, and Sparberg.

I'm ready to move on to the next address. I will probably move next door on the census, but I might make a detour to North Seventh Street where Selig's brother, Julius, was residing. Why am I interested? Having lived in St. Louis for my whole life I do expect to run across surnames that while not related to me, are still familiar. I'm also interested in fleshing out this community of Little Jerusalem where all of my paternal second great grandparents lived at one time. My Newmark ancestors arrived in 1909 and settled perhaps a block or two outside of the boundaries. The Cruvants, Blatts & Feinsteins all resided within the boundaries at some point.

I have created a secondary blog - Little Jerusalem 1900 to write about discoveries that aren't directly related to my family history. Today I posted a transcription of a news article about a War Between Candy Shops. It's a humorous story about competing businesses, and is a refreshing counterpoint to the disturbing descriptions of the tenement conditions I have read elsewhere. It also suggests that Candy Apples were introduced in St. Louis in 1900, 8 years prior to when they are said to have been invented in New Jersey. Some people might question how these two candy apples compared. Certainly many people confuse Caramel Apples with Candy Apples. But Caramel Apples are said to have been invented by Kraft Foods in the 1950s. It's not clear what was introduced in St. Louis in 1900 and how it may differ from what was introduced in 1908, but the description given in the newspaper article appears to resemble what we know today as Candy Apples. The origin story of the confection may need to be rewritten if Candy Apples were being sold by two candy shops in St. Louis in 1900.

Amanuensis Monday: New Institute for Hebrew Children - December 13, 1900

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

This week I look at another newspaper article found at Chronicling America, which doesn't reference a relative, but does provide some history on Jewish education in the St. Louis area at the turn of the 20th century.

Amanuensis Monday: A Concert in Carr Park - August 10, 1902

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

This week I look at another newspaper article found at ChroniclingAmerica about the Carr Square neighborhood of St. Louis City from the early 1900s, where several of my paternal ancestors lived. If these articles are representative, the language of the news was a lot more 'colorful' back then.

Amanuensis Monday: An August Night in the Slums - 1896 - St. Louis

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

This week I share a transcription of a newspaper article I found at NewspaperArchive. No relatives are mentioned, but the setting is a neighborhood I've written about in the past, and in which several of my paternal ancestors lived at the turn of the 19th century. Finding out how the neighbors of my ancestors lived gives me an idea how my ancestors might have lived. Those who have read my earlier posts on the neighborhood know, it's not a pretty picture.

The Mystery of the Secondhand Shop

I'm not always adept at adding or subtracting years from a face and judging whether two photos are a possible match. However, since composing this morning's Amanuensis Monday, I've been looking back and forth between the photograph of the secondhand shop, and some photographs I have of members of the Cruvant family. As I mentioned in my notes, while I'd like the photograph to be of Selig Feinstein and his family, for whom I don't have photographs to compare, my second great grandfather Moshe Leyb Cruvant also owned a secondhand shop in 1900.

On the top left is the secondhand shop from the news article.

On the right is my second great grandmother, Minnie (Mojsabovski) Cruvant, and my great grandmother, Bertha (Cruvant) Newmark. To the immediate left of this text is my second great grandfather, Moshe Leyb Cruvant.

In 1900, Bertha would have been about 13. Her older brother, Ben, would have been 15. And her younger brother, Sol, would have been 7.  I do see vague facial similarities between the photos I have of Bertha, Minnie and Moshe Leyb and the individuals in the photograph from the St. Louis Republic. I don't believe I have any photos of Sol.

I don't know when the photograph of Moshe Leyb was taken, but he passed away in 1911, so if we assume ten years had passed, he would still have had to age significantly. However, he would have been 43 in the 1900 photo, which looks about right. He only lived to age 54 - he looks older in that photograph by today's standards than he really is.

Their shop on Morgan Street was within the boundaries of Little Jerusalem as defined in the article, though not as close to the location on Seventh street as the Feinstein shop.

If this is the Cruvant family, the baby is a complete mystery.  Sol is the youngest child of Moshe Leyb and Minnie we know about. However, Moshe Leyb had some kin in St. Louis, and perhaps that's a nephew or niece that happened to show up in a photo.

The facial resemblances are tantalizing, but I really need a known photograph of one of them from much closer to 1900 to make a comparison.

Update


This photograph of my great grandmother, Bertha, I believe comes from a few years prior to the one above. She is on the right. (It is her sister, Stella, on the left.) I think the resemblance remains, though the girl in the newspaper's photo isn't looking straight at the camera, and is partially hiding her face with her hand, making it difficult.

This is the earliest photograph I can find of Sol, dated 1930.

I have looked at the known Cruvant births in St. Louis, and none of Moshe Leyb's kin had babies who would be under a year old in August of 1900. The closest was born in October of 1898. The presence of that baby throws the greatest wringer in the theory of a match.

Amanuensis Monday: Little Jerusalem - St. Louis - 1900

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

***
This week we return to "Little Jerusalem" - an area of St. Louis mentioned in last Monday's entry - for an extensive feature story on the town. I discovered this article at ChroniclingAmerica as well.

Amanuensis Monday: Nightshirt Parade in Little Jerusalem - 1900

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

I began this project back on February 16, 2009.  Since I began, many others have joined in on the meme. I am thrilled that this meme I started has inspired so many to transcribe their family history documents. Why do we transcribe? I provide my three reasons in the linked post. You may find others.

***

I discovered the following news story at ChroniclingAmerica, a digital collection of newspapers belonging to the Library of Congress. It makes reference to Julius Odelsohn, the brother of my second great grandfather, Selig Feinstein. They both changed their surname from the original Dudelczak upon arriving in America.