Weekend Matinee--Sundown with Gene Tierney

     At the Lowe's Theater the week of December 8th, 1941 we have the movie "Sundown" with the lovely Gene Tierney and Bruce Cabot and directed by Henry Hathaway

 

   Adapted from a short story in the Saturday Evening Post by Barre Lyndon, who also wrote the screenplay, it is set in wartime British East Africa. Cabot was a veteran of movies, who had some great roles over the years, just never found the breakthrough to make him a star. Along with a workmanlike cast including George Sanders, Joseph Calleia and Harry Carey (no...not THAT Harry Carey) it is a pleasant 'B' movie to take one's mind over the events just a less than a week before.

     However it was hoped to be a breakthrough for Tierney, who was working up the ranks in Broadway then in movies, and at the age of 20 was cast as the alluring but potentially dangerous Zia. Does one wonder what kind of accent that was in the movie?? Does actually anyone care?? Probably not any of the men in the audience. Cabot didn't even attempt a British accent either....

      The movie was a so-so at the box office, although it was nominated for three Academy Awards (non for acting). The focus of many of the reviews focused on Tierney and her looks, but show that she could hold her own in a lead role, even at such a young age.

     

No Candies Like Busy Bee Candies

This is a company that we have some information on, but could use some more. If you have pictures or more information you could share, please comment below. 

The original company was created by Gilbert Candy who was born in Bath, England in 1864 and immigrated with his parents somewhere between 1865 and 1872. He moved to St. Louis in 1881 and along with brother Walter, started the Candy Brothers Manufacturing Company in 1885 and was located at 215 Chestnut. 

In 1903, the brothers were joined by William (b.1873) and Busy Bee Candies were formed. We know they sold the business in 1935 and closed for good in 1959. The last address we had for them was 417 North Seventh. 

We also have a picture from the archives at UMSL (University of Missouri-St. Louis). It is a 1950 picture of a group who were alumni from Busy Bee back in 1925. Thought you might find it of interest. 

Help me Find That Business....pt. 1

 
  Hey everyone! Our first three blogs have just turned out to be on weekends, but as mentioned in the beginning, if there was the need for a new one more often, then that's what we would do.

     On today's blog, I'm hoping that all of us can work together to share memories and perhaps a  picture or two about your recollections of Vintage St. Louis.

     Here is how I hope this will work. Below is a list of businesses and addresses. What I am looking for are pictures, stories and maybe even family recollections that might be able to help flesh out a better look and feel of the place. There are advertisements of all of theses places in my files, but am wanting more. Please feel free to comment any information that would be helpful.

     Here we go...

1. French Cleaners, 2 locations: 8301 Olive Street & 8040 Chippewa

2. Carl's Restaurant, 709 Washington

3. Asbestos Pad Company, 923 Washington

4. Mt. Auburn Market,  6128 Easton Ave., Welston

5. The Map Shop, 1412 Olive

    All of these businesses were open in the early 40's. Hope to hear from you!

Comeback for a 80's Mexican Fast Food Legend--Naugles

     There have been several fast food chains that were a part of the 70's and 80's that are no longer with us and includes two of my all-time favorites. One of them was Burger Chef which was bought out by Hardee's in the 80's. The second was Naugles which was gone by the mid-90's but has resurfaced complete with a David vs. Goliath story that will leave you smiling and perhaps hoping that it will make a comeback in St. Louis soon.

     There were four locations in the St. Louis area. The location in Fenton opened sometime in the late 70's/early 80's. It was my first real exposure to Mexican fast food. It's items, such as the taco burger, cheese burrito and an unmistakable red and green sauce made it a favorite of mine until I left the area in the early 80's.

     Naugles was formed in 1970 by former Del Taco partner Dick Naugle. He was bought out by Harold Butler (who founded Denny's in the late 50's)  in 1979 and grew the franchise from three to 225. In 1986, Butler sold the company to Collins Foods International who began to transform most of them into Del Taco's. The four Naugles in the St. Louis area transferred in 1994 and were the last that were taken in by Del Taco. The next year, the remaining four restaurants, all in Nevada, were closed.

   Fast forward about 10 years to California.  Christian Ziebarth was a web designer who was the author of a very popular blog, "Orange County Mexican Restaurants". In 2006 he put up a remembrance page where he lamented the closing of the franchise, and suggested that Del Taco revive a few of them. The overall popularity of the blog led the marketing folks at Del Taco in 2008 to reach out to him and suggest how they might be able to help one another. This led Ziebarth to point to his page a couple of years before and request that they reinstate some of the Naugles items that were so popular.

     Over the next two years, an exchange ensued between the blogger and the company where he would ask about any movement towards his earlier request. The letters in response were a mix of passing the buck and downright obfuscation. At this point Ziebarth realized that the chain had no intention of even entertaining his suggestion, so he began down his own path.

   With nothing much to go on, in 2009 he launched the Naugles twitter handle and the Nauglestacos.com website which promised a comeback of the chain. During that same year, he was told about a restaurant that had family ties to original owner Dick Naugle about 200 miles away. Called "Buns & Torts" in Visalia, he found many Naugle's classic menu items. Over the next couple of years through his own research, he was able to recreate many of the original recipes.

    He came to believe that although Del Taco had the trademark, they had no intention of doing anything with it. Ziebarth filed for the trademark in 2010 and thus began a four year dispute with the company. During this time he would hold, "pop up" events, mostly with enthusiasts of the Naugles brand and friends to perfect his recipes. 
 
     On March of 2015, Ziebarth won a judgement from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board allowing them to open a test kitchen in Fountain Valley, CA. After a reboot that was SO successful that they had to close temporally as they totally underestimated its popularity and had to retool. They reopened soon after where they remain, along with a site in Huntington Beach, selling a menu that is very loyal to the original. Ziebarth is hoping to grow the brand in the areas where it did well in the past including Las Vegas and of course, St. Louis.

Furnishings of Character--Lammert's Furniture

     In many older homes in the mid-west and south, you still might be able to find at least one piece of furniture from Lammert's Furniture in St. Louis. For many years, Lammert's was a sign of quality and craftsmanship.

     Martin Lammert Sr. came to the Washington, Missouri from Germany with his parents, but was orphaned by the age of 16 and moved to down the river to St. Louis.

     Lammert opened his first store in 1861 on Franklin Avenue, and grew quickly enough that it had to move eight times until finding it's iconic home on 911-919 Washington Avenue.

     The building itself was built in 1898 and was first home to Hargadine and McKettrick Drygoods Company until 1923, when Lammert's moved in. The Washington Ave. building was designated a city landmark in 1979 and was renovated in 1984.

By the time of the move,  Martin Lammert Jr. was at the helm and began to be known as THE place to buy quality furniture and throughout the mid-west and south. In fact, through  catalog sales, Lammert's had a reach of over 30 states. By it's peak in the late 50's and early 60's with Lammert III in charge the company grew to five stores as they followed many city dwellers out to the county.

Martin Lammert V with his namesakes. 

     By 1970 however, with continuing population loss in the city and the popularity of wholesale merchants, Martin Lammert IV made the decision to close the downtown location in 1973 and began a change over to a fine furniture store.




 

The business itself enjoyed a renaissance with this changeover in focus and eventually scaled down to one building in Clayton and later moved to a 10,000 square foot building on South Lindbergh in Frontenac.

      Lammert V sold the property in 2007 and to my knowledge still sells real estate in the area. For over 135 years, Lammert's provided quality furniture for many.

A Love Affair with a City I Never Knew

        

     If we live long enough, we become defined by images. Some are mind pictures of people we've known, snapshots of places we've been, experiences that burn brightly in our soul to the point that it still affects long after memory itself falters. It is easy to assume that these mind photos are tangible, such as a trip to the grand canyon or the first time that one holds their new born child. 

     Others are just flashes that go by in the seat of a car as you pass by, here and gone except perhaps by voices that accompany the images. Voice that define and give shape to those images in a way that you almost feel as if you were there in a truly tangible way. For me, that was growing up near St. Louis, a place that was so close, but seemed so far away from my day to day existence. 

     I was born in St. Charles, Missouri. The small city just to the West of St. Louis County, although one could hardly call it a city in 1960. My family spent much of the previous two decades bouncing between St. Louis and Southeast Missouri, depending on if Dad had a job or not. My three siblings were much older with two having graduated from high school and the "baby" of the family being 14. 

    Shortly afterward, we moved out into Jefferson County which was directly to the south of St. Louis County. Dad was working in construction as a concrete finisher and was working pouring foundations in a new subdivision. With a new baby they made a last effort to make it as a couple and moved out into the sticks. So it was in a village called High Ridge that became home for the next 17 years. While just 25 miles away, it could have been 2500 miles at times.... 

     The distance in age of my siblings assured me of basically growing up an only child, and according in my family, quite a pretentious one as well. It also accorded me the opportunity to explore my ability to amuse and entertain myself. As I got older, there were friends, several very close ones in fact, but was never in need of companionship just for the sake of having someone around. 

     The imagination and creativity that being alone so much would allow would manifest itself in a peculiar way for someone who grew up in the 1970's. It would be useless to point to an exact time that it was apparent that the radio had not only become my friend, but also a source of fascination, and for the purposes of this blog, the jumping off point for my love affair with the city of St. Louis. 

     Radio was still a major source of entertainment and information in the 1970's and while most my age were defined by the music stations. KXOK (630 AM) and later KSLQ (104.5 FM) took care of the top 40 crowd, but for many of us it was KSHE-FM 95 (it was actually 94.7) and to a lesser extent, KADI-FM (96.3) which defined a generation of rock fans in the midwest with a new format known as underground rock. 

     As it has turned out though, the radio station that formulated my view of the city was KMOX-AM, the 100,000 watt blowtorch that was not only the voice of the city, but in an earlier time, was a voice that was influential over an entire area of the county. It was at first for me baseball. It's hard to describe, unless you live in New York, Chicago or Boston the love affair that St. Louis has with the Cardinals. There were other sports, and they were well supported for the most part, but by the time the 70's came around you were born Cardinal red.






     From there, I would listen to Jim Carney during the summertime, who's mid-morning show was a mix of comedy, information, and hobnobbing with local celebrities. Many a night I would fall asleep with the game on the air then wake up to the sounds of John McCormack, the "man who walks and talks at midnight" with voices that were new to me except for the names that I recognized my mom talking about; Perry Como, Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra. 

     Before long my musical taste went all over the map, but it was the vision of St. Louis as this urbane, swinging, exciting city that KMOX promoted that had me hook, line and sinker. Of course, before leaving high school, it became apparent that just like all visions, there is the dream and there is the reality. After graduating from Northwest High School in House Springs in 1978, I left to find something beyond my existence in that little village and for the most part, there was no return. 

     However, I never quite got over the old flame. 

     There have been many stops, some triumphs and a few missteps along the way, and find myself as the general manager of three radio stations in Southern Mississippi having become a voice in the early morning, just like I used to hear as a kid. 

    So this brings me to this blog. The St Louis that I envisioned in my mind as a teenager was partly reality, partly post World War II city which was on the way out, and let's face it, a dose of romanticism, but what love affair isn't without that? 

   With any luck, the posts over the coming days will be a search for those places that have faded into obscurity except for the pictures and memories people hold close. Some still exist and others have had a face lift. There will be stories, music and pictures. I invite you to comment about your stories and add where I will fail to give a full account. This has been a long time in coming and hope you will find the journey bringing you in touch with your memories as well.