Cole County History: Southside alleys and ways - a simpler way of life

<p>Submitted</p><p>Capitol (Moerschel) Brewery Co. is shown in 1896, on Cedar Alley and Washington Street.</p>

Submitted

Capitol (Moerschel) Brewery Co. is shown in 1896, on Cedar Alley and Washington Street.

Although both were established mid-19th century, the Southside alleys were the antithesis of Hog Alley in the capital's downtown, the mud-infested three-block alleyway declared segregated housing for former slaves and servants. In contrast, the Southside alleys became close-knit German neighborhoods with substantial brick residences and businesses of newly arrived immigrants from the Bavarian home village of Muenchberg. Nearly every square block in Munichburg was divided by several alleys, now called ways. However, most history and activity were located on Cedar Alley running some eight blocks from Broadway to Jackson streets, parallel to Dunklin Street.

The unique Missouri-German Vernacular architecture of two-story brick Victorian street-side residences and smaller framed rear alley houses and carriage garages provided additional housing for newly arrived immigrants, for extended family members, or for income-generating rental property. A surprising number of alley residences remain.

Required for access to back properties, Cedar Alley technically begins in Schwartzott's Subdivision, drawn by architect Wilhelm Vogdt in 1887, on the Broadway-Dunklin corner. Nine street houses were built on this historic block facing Broadway and Dunklin Street, all having direct access to a rear alley. Remaining in this back alley is the small, yet sturdy 12-by-24-foot Saar-Pietsch House built around 1890. Built of soft, porous brick, the alley house features a tiny attic above two 10-by-10 rooms, each with a separate flue. The currently occupied residence sits behind the Katherine Langerhans House (on the National Register of Historic Places), now The Schaefer House, at 618 Broadway St.

Still in Cedar Alley, a one-story frame California Bungalow sits behind the Clarence Buersmeyer House, (1929 NRHP) at 608 Broadway St. The alley home's occupant was the caretaker of horses stabled in the carriage house behind 610 Broadway St, the John Sinclair House (1913 NRHP). A second structure farther behind the stable at 610 was a one-and-a-half-story brick building with painted walls and gable roof that may have originally been the carriage house for the Henry Schwartzott House on the other end of the lot. Historian Jane Beetem describes this building resembling a typical-to-that-era smokehouse appearing on the 1869 "Bird's Eye View" map of the Capital City.

Two alley houses, now garages, in the 200 Cedar Way block were originally designed for an extended family's residence. The one-story brick alley house with two garage bays separated by a single arched doorway sits behind the Martin Gipfert House (1901 NRHP) at 218 W. Dunklin St. Behind the two-story brick Joseph & Louisa Pope House, (1897 NRHP) at 222 W. Dunklin St., now Rosewood Music, sits a one-story rectangular rock-faced concrete-block outbuilding with window and attic openings.

Besides alleys, a defining identity of Southside was its citizens' love of beer as marked by a major brewery in existence on Cedar Alley for some 150 years. Historian and Southside resident Walter Schroeder writes beer was a unifying bond of all German immigrants: "When drinking together, Catholics, Lutherans, Evangelicals and freethinkers forgot their historic differences, bound together by gemtlichkeit, that warm, cozy feeling that develops with good times in a social setting."

In 1870, a Muenchberg, Bavarian immigrant George Wagner located his brewery on the existing Gundelfinger Brewery property in the 100 block of West Dunklin. The 1885 Sanford Fire Map illustrates Wagner's City Brewery on Cedar Alley as one long building housing the Wagner family dwelling, saloon, brewery and icehouse facing Dunklin. Employees lived on premises, utilizing "sleeping rooms" warmed by coal-heated stoves and lights kept alight with lard oil.

Then, in 1892, another Bavarian immigrant, Jacob F. Moerschel, razed the Wagner brewery to build an even more profitable Capitol Brewery Company. The Sanford 1908 map shows the brewery including a company office, a brew house, and two cold storage facilities on the alley; "Freezing Tanks" (ice plant) and "Bottling Headquarters" on the Dunklin Street side. The alley held stables, later converted to garages, for twelve delivery horses. The Moerschel Brewery was closed in 1947 due to competition from St. Louis beers and the buildings demolished in 1970, replaced by a Safeway store.

What kept the brewers returning to this same block were the caves in Munichburg's hills, so important for beer storage before refrigeration. A multi-layered limestone cellar had been dug into the hillside under Tanner Way, south of ECCO Lounge on Jefferson Street, where beer was stored in kegs to serve the capital's saloons. Today, little is left of the impressive brewing industry created before 1850, except for brewery collectors' items.

Stories heard over the years flow easily in pubs today about childhoods spent in Southside, along the alleys or at the traveling circuses held in the unnamed alley behind Farmers Home, a hotel and saloon for farmers, now the ECCO Lounge. The circus provided entertainment for many where, Schroeder said, one could "make a quarter by wrestling a bear" or watch ventriloquists, magicians and medicine shows." Unfortunately, the alley houses, like the magicians' sleight-of-hand, have now nearly vanished, taking their stories with them.

Sources used for article include Jane Beetem's nominations National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) for the Southside and the Broadway-Dunklin Street historic districts and Walter A. Schroeder's "Breweries and Saloons in Jefferson City, Missouri" and "Southside Sketches."

Carolyn Bening, a former assistant editor of Historic City of Jefferson's Yesterday & Today newsletter, is a local historian, retired high school and university teacher, and genealogist.