I’m overjoyed to share this news release from the German American Heritage Society of St. Louis. It tells about the culmination of five years of hard and sometimes discouraging work. I hope to see you at the events on Oct. 27.

During World War I, patriotic German Americans were made to choose between their heritage and their nation.  Schools ended their German language education programs. Churches were pressured to stop holding services in German. In Collinsville, Illinois, a mob went farther by lynching a German alien named Robert Prager.

Now the German American Heritage Society of Saint Louis (GAHS) and author Jim Merkel have developed a citywide memorial to this time of anti-German hysteria in street corners around the city. They’ll celebrate these memorials on Oct. 27, fifteen days before the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

“These honorary designations are an important historical artifact for St. Louis.  When someone walks by these signs, they will learn the stories behind the old names and the new names, and the important lesson underneath,” said James Martin, president of GAHS. “On this 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, these signs provide a concrete reminder of our past, and will hopefully provide insight and wisdom for future generations.”

For five years, GAHS and Merkel have worked to mark the six streets whose German “enemy” names were changed during World War I. So far, they have completed the time-consuming process of obtaining city approval for honorary designations noting the original German names for four streets.

The city also has granted the honorary designation of “Robert Prager Way” on Bates Street between Morgan Ford Road and Gravois Avenue in the Bevo Mill neighborhood. It’s next to St. Matthew Cemetery, where Prager is buried.

On Oct. 27, honorary street signs in German colors for Robert Prager Way will be dedicated at 9 a.m. at the corner of Bates and Morgan Ford.  The Bismarck Street signs will be dedicated at 10:30 a.m. at Seventh and Lami street. Depending on city and neighborhood approvals, there will be additional ceremonies  on Oct. 27 or later.

The Oct. 27 ceremonies will conclude with a reception and program open to the public at a place to be designated. Details will be posted at https://germanamericancommittee.org/ as they are finalized.

The three honorary streets that have already been dedicated are: Knapstein Place (now Providence Place.) in the Dutchtown neighborhood; Kaiser Street (now Gresham Street) in the Princeton Heights neighborhood; and Habsburger Avenue (now Cecil Place) in the Boulevard Heights neighborhood. Two streets that are under review for designations or markers are Von Versen Avenue (now Enright Avenue) in the West End neighborhood and Berlin Avenue (now Pershing Avenue) in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood.

Merkel began the campaign to give the streets the honorary designations after learning of the anti-German hysteria while he was writing his book, Beer, Brats, and Baseball: St. Louis Germans. In 2013, he teamed up with GAHS to promote the concept.

Under city ordinance, a street or a portion of a street may receive an honorary name designation if at least 60 percent of registered voters in that area sign a petition requesting it. Then the alderman for that area may introduce a bill calling for the designation. Alderman often request support from neighborhood organizations first. The actual street name stays the same.

The city requires an organization to pay for honorary street signs. GAHS is paying the cost for signs in bright German colors.

Organizers see the citywide series of honorary street signs as more than a memorial to what happened to German Americans in World War I. They view it as a reminder that any person, group or nationality can be targeted under certain circumstances.

 

 

 

Whenever I’m out signing books, doing a presentation, or speaking on the radio, I always enjoy talking to people about my writing. It’s been especially so with the first and second editions of The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hats Who Built the Gateway Arch. I’ve found that just about everybody around here is passionate about the Arch, for all kinds of reasons.

I saw that when I did a couple of signings this past weekend at the annual Celebrate Wildwood fair and at the Costco in Manchester. Everybody had a story about it, Denise Coleman, who was 8 when the Icon went up, remembered hearing her dad scoff, “Why are they spending all that money on a piece of metal that means nothing?” Lots of baby boomers who were there at the time shared stories about watching it go up.

I’m always amazed at how many people say their father or some other relative worked on it. I don’t have any reason to doubt any of them. On the other hand, if all those people helped build the Gateway Arch, then 50,000 must have assisted in the project. Hmm. I also often hear a wild story about that Arch that can’t be true. I heard one this weekend. It’s like what you read on Facebook. Just because somebody says it doesn’t mean it’s true.

Then there are the math types and engineers who love to talk about the equations and numbers that went into the shape of the Arch. One of them was Linda T. Crothers, an engineer originally from Houston and a  consulting project manager with Glotel USA supporting Verizon’s 1Fiber (ODN) Optical Distribution Network in St. Louis Mo. I ran into her at my signing table at Celebrate Wildwood. It was wild talking with her about the math behind the Arch. She understood all of it. I understood none. But it was still fun.

This weekend, I talked to a guy from China who said the first thing he does when a friend comes from his native land is to take him to the Arch. The same thing for locals. Everybody has a story about the Icon. It’s the best thing we have.

It’s been lonely since a fire last November destroyed all the books in the Reedy Press warehouse, including my own. Suddenly, I had nothing to sell and nothing to do. Without any books, I stayed at home, bored. Thankfully, though, the folks at Reedy Press didn’t like that idea. They helped me come up with a fantastic second edition of one of the books destroyed in the fire, The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hats Who Built The Gateway Arch.

Now they’re getting ready to reprint my other three books: Hoosiers and Scrubby Dutch: St. Louis’ South Side;  Beer, Brats, and Baseball: St. Louis’ South Side; and The Colorful Characters of St. Louis. I’ll let you know when it happens and post links to buy them.  When that happen, I’ll be completely back in business.

 

I’ve been to all kinds of places promoting the second edition of The Making of an Icon since it came out about a month ago. I’ve been on radio and television, have spoken at a Rotary meeting and a senior living apartments center and signed books at a gift shop. It’s all been fun, but I had a special thrill on Sunday, when I signed books at The Arch Store in the Visitor Center of the Gateway Arch.

I’ve been too busy to go down there since it opened just before Independence Day. Sorry for repeating a cliche, but it’s amazing. The entrance is spectacular, and the new museum does a much better job of telling the story of the westward expansion and the Gateway Arch than before. I’ll write about it more some time. A mockup of the middle of the observation deck gives a good sense of what it’s like to be at the top of the Arch, down to the view from cameras at the top.

What I liked the best on Sunday, of course, was talking to visitors from everywhere, including one guy from Australia. I talked to a lot of people from Indiana, for some reason, and explained when St. Louisans mean when they say “Hoosiers.” More than anything, I liked signing books and telling people why the Arch is the best thing St. Louis has.

I liked almost all of it, except for the wait to get in. I came at a really busy time. It took more than an hour standing in line before I passed through security. They have three metal detectors, but only used one. Fortunately, lines are inside where it’s cool rather than outside where it’s hot, as it was with the old entrances. Maybe they should run all three metal detectors when crowds are heavy.

Meanwhile, we can come when there aren’t many people. Regardless, everyone should see the new visitor center and museum, and everyone should buy The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hats Who Built The Gateway Arch, 2nd Edition. If you want to support a struggling freelance writer and get an autographed copy, click here.

A writer’s life is never slow, but it really zooms after a book comes out. That’s what I’m going through with The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hats Who Built The Gateway Arch, 2nd Edition. 

Between now and Sunday, I’m doing two interviews, two presentations and two signings. It would be nice to stretch it out. But it’s worth it if I can talk up my favorites subject.

Wednesday at 10, I’ll be at the studios of STL TV on Oakland Avenue for a taping of Steve Potter’s City Corner, a current events program of the city’s informational cable TV station. Then at noon, I’ll give a presentation to a Rotary Club in the county. Thursday afternoon, I’ll do another presentation at a senior living facility in Webster Groves.

This morning, Jim Doyle sent an e-mail asking me to come on his program “Friday Morning With The Arts,” at 9 a.m. Friday on the Radio Arts Foundation. I can’t turn him down, no matter how busy I am.  You can listen to him at , at 107.3, at KNOU, 96.3 HD2, or on line. 

From noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, you’ll see me signing my books at Circa STL Restaurant and Tavern at 1090 Old Des Peres Road in Des Peres. Come in, have an STL BBQ Pork Steak Dinner and a beverage and have me autograph a book. What could be better?

What could be better is four hours outside the Arch Store at the Gateway Arch Visitor Center. That’s where I’ll be signing books from 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Come see me and then see the museum and go to the top. 

I’ll be busy in the next few days, but I’ll love it. I hope to see you some time from now to Sunday. If you’re too busy to see or hear me in the next few days, press here to buy a book.

 

 

As we celebrate the opening of the reconfigured Gateway Arch grounds, museum and visitor center, it’s a good time to think about some of the odd, weird and fun facts about our town’s treasure. Here’s a few of them, along with the pages where you’ll find out more in The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hats Who Built the Gateway Arch, 2nd Edition.

• An enduring urban legend holds that bad storms veer away from St. Louis because of an “Arch Effect.” Supposedly, an iconic pulse in the icon’s legs, originally developed for a doomsday weather weapon against the Nazis, nudges the storms away. (Pages 176-177)
• The Missouri Secretary of State’s online database of corporate names lists more than 4,600 corporations, past and present, whose name includes the name “Arch”  or “Gateway.” There is no list of businesses with different names that include a figure of the Arch in their logo, but there surely are many of them. (Page 170-172.)
• When a small plane flew through the legs of the Arch less than nine months after it was topped out, the Federal Aviation Administration promised it would punish the offending pilot most severely after they caught him. It never did. Then in 2016, Donna Dorris of Madison, Il. went to the Post-Dispatch and said her late father Earl Bolin made the fly-through on June 22, 1966. That was the first of 11 confirmed fly-throughs from 1966 to 1984. (Pages 165-167)
• The company that sent a team of building climbers down the Arch to check out unsightly stains and smudges on the surface offered a list of low-tech products to clean the icon. They include Zud Heavy Duty Cleanser, Avesta Cleaner 401, Barkeeper’s Friend and Scotchbrite Lite Duty Cleaning Pad. (Pages 202-207)

  

  To find the whole story of the Arch, you can buy The Making of an Icon: The Dreamers, The Schemers, and The Hard Hat Who Built The Gateway Arch, 2nd Edition here.  

The KMOV studios were a great place to be this morning as I talked about The Making of an Icon, 2nd Edition, with Kent Ehrhardt of Great Day St. Louis.  We had fun on the Channel 4 morning program talking about how the Arch came to be. We also talked about a most important part of the project: the way-high-up outhouses on derricks on both legs.

After I left the KMOV studios, I swung by KMOX AM 1120 for an interview with Brian Kelly. I showed him one of the special projects experts said could clean the Arch: Bar Keepers Friend. I also showed off two chains meant to demonstrate the difference between a catenary curve and a weighted catenary curve. The Arch is a weighted catenary curve. That’ll be on either 8:20 or 8:50 Sunday.  You also can see a picture of my demonstration on Facebook. I’ll post a link.

If that’s not enough, my friend Steve Potter will broadcast an interview of me at 9 a.m. Friday on Alton station WBGZ 1570 AM and 94.3 FM. You also can hear it on podcast. .Hear all of them and then read the book