Thursday, December 2, 2010

"Wash House," Lemp Brewery

The largest building, at least by the amount of land that it takes up, is the "wash house" in the southern corner of the Lemp Brewery. It's interesting to see the row of houses along Broadway in the map, considering that they are long gone today. Perhaps living right next to the constant noise of the locomotives moving train cars right in their backyard made the houses uninhabitable.I have no idea what the "wash house" was used for, except that it was in fact its official name, as described in the Centennial History of Missouri, where it uses the name while describing the various positions a certain Lucas Duffner served as supervisor at the brewery.What is fascinating about this building is the obviously massive amount of meddling that someone at sometime did to this building. There are clear remnants of what used to be arched, Italianate style windows on the facade of this low slung building, but they were filled in at one point, probably in the early Twentieth Century to create large, rectangular windows.As needs changed, it seems, so did the appearance of the building.

2 comments:

  1. I am really enjoying this series you are doing, Chris. Here is a link to a postcard featuring a scene inside the Wash House.

    http://new.lynknight.com/ShowAuctionDetails.Asp?auction_Id=141426

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  2. Wow, that postcard is awesome! Thanks for sharing; I take it the wash house was where the barrels were washed out before they were filled with beer. The cooper shop being in the same building makes sense.

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A Blog detailing the beauty of St. Louis architecture and the buildup of residue-or character-that accumulates over the course of time.