The History of Gravois

The History of Gravois

Gravois Road is all in all a fascinating part of the history of St. Louis. With its many historical landmarks and rich amount of different cultures and heritages, Gravois holds true to much of its history into the present day. Even though many of the streets in St. Louis are being worked on, this street continues to have many visitors and people living there.

The first trip down Gravois was particularly interesting for me. Since I had never driven in that part of the city, it was difficult to find the street. Upon arriving at Gravois, the road was being worked on. This gave the impression that the entire road was going to be a shambles so we proceeded with caution. Soon we wondered if were ever going to see any houses. The road was lined with used car outlets as far as the eye could see. Many of the houses that we observed in this area were being rehabbed or were boarded up.

Eventually, we started to see more shopping centers and strip malls in the midst of all the car lots. The feeling of the road began to change and become much more welcoming as we got further away from the inner city. I wondered if we felt that way because we were not accustom to being in a city environment. The houses steadily got nicer and we began to see things like schools and churches. The various schools that we saw directly off the street were a few elementary schools, high schools, and one private all girls schools. GravoisÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦ housing eventually thinned out as it became highway 30. The houses on the other side of 270 were huge compared to the other houses seen in the inner city.

Gravois road started out with a humble beginning. The road was made to travel to a small town named Fenton outside of the city limits. This small town of Fenton was founded by a man named William Long. Long had named the town after his mother. After talking to a circuit court, William Long finally had his wish for the road called Gravois to be made (Hannon 180).

The name of the road was taken from the French. The definition of Gravois is actually gravelly, rubbish, or rubble. Sometimes the road was even referred to as Ð'ÐŽÐ'§the road to the dump (Magnan 61).Ð'ÐŽÐ'Ё Nevertheless, Gravois became an official a state road in 1839. The road and its inhabitants were a little rough around the edges until forty mostly German families settled down and built a few churches (Hannon 180). For a long time Gravois continued to be a muddy and unattractive road until the paving began in 1915. After all the hard work, and a little donation from the Busch family, Gravois became the first concrete highway of Missouri. Its finished length was six miles long (Magnan 61).

Several locations on Gravois greatly affected the growth of its population: GrantÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s Farm, Bevo Mill, and St. Francis de Sales Catholic church. Each of these locations as well as the people who founded them had its own effect on the road. Without these three special locations on Gravois, the road would not be the same as it is today.

Grant's Farm started in 1848 when Ulysses S. Grant received a new house and eighty acres as a wedding present for him and his wife Julia Dent. Eventually, the property fell out of the hands of the Grant family and into the hands of the Busch family (Wilson 7). This makes Grant's Farm such a pivotal location on Gravois because of the road itself. Without the Busch family buying GrantÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s Farm, the road would have taken much longer to pave (Magnan 61). This could have a seriously affected all the residents on the road by not having the road develop as quickly as it did.

The Busch family also played a great role in creating one of the favored family restaurants in the St. Louis area, the Bevo Mill. August A. Busch Sr. chose the location for the Bevo Mill because it was halfway between his home at GrantÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s Farm and the brewery. He made sure that much of the building was used as a restaurant, and he opened it to the public in 1917. The name Ð'ÐŽÐ'§BevoÐ'ÐŽÐ'Ё actually came from a non-alcoholic beverage that tasted like beer. This gave the Bevo Mill great popularity due to the prohibition controversy going on in the country. It soon became known as a great family restaurant (History of Bevo Mill 1-2).

The final location on Gravois that has greatly affected the roadÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s development is St. Francis de Sales Catholic church. Since much of the population around the church was German, they decided to show some pride and nostalgia in designing the church. The main layout for St. Francis de Sales came from another German Catholic church called St. Paul. The building was started in 1895 but was stalled due to a tornado ravaging the church grounds. Building resumed in 1907 and was completed by an architect by the name of Victor Klutho. Though Klutho tried to keep the cost of building the church low, the parish pushed the idea of a three hundred foot, steel-frame spine be put on the top of the church no matter the cost. This helped to insure a sense of pride in the local parish for many years to come (Gosbrink, Longwisch, Stiritz, and Toft 92-93). The church still stands today and continues to hold mass as usual. The church helped to develop more religion in the area and created a symbol for all of the parish goers to stand behind. Though one of the most important services provided by the church may be that it helped German immigrants feel more at home in a new land.

Many communities have changed over time along Gravois. One of the more well known neighborhoods along Gravois is Affton. With every decade this community has grown and changed in its own way to create the vast community that we know of today. The community started with a man named Johann Aff; he began a general store in 1872. The community began to call itself AffÐ'ÐŽÐ'¦s town when Aff became the postmaster