Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Urban exploration in St. Louis, Missouri
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PANIC! on the Titanic
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Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by PANIC! on the Titanic »

Wonder what it collapsed into? That water main has been dumping water into the hole for a while now, being drained away efficiently.

http://www.kmov.com/story/35777514/sink ... n-st-louis
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Re: Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by BagHead727 »

Exactly what I was curious about. A lot of water draining somewhere. If I wasn't in Columbia I'd check it out
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RE: Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by Chubz »

Post-Dispatch article seems to suggest the Railway Exchange Building (Famous Barr) has 3-6ft of water in the basement, but they only say it has been flooding within the last week.

The KMOV article makes it sound like that main has been broken for weeks.

What is the truth?!
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RE: Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by Whitepanther »

Did a lot of work at this railway exchange building years ago. I have never been able to personally confirm this (and I don’t know how anyone could) but the author of St. Louis 365 claimed this was the first building in the world to take up the footprint of an entire modern city block. Im a bit skeptical NYC didn’t claim that record first. It looks like a really tall building for its day but only about half of it was solid floor space. The other half was perimeter floor space only.

It was a super unique bldg for sure though. Famous Barr occupied 7 floors of store space. Each escalator you went up was older than the last. Some of my funniest work stories ever happened in that bldg. None of which are SJW friendly.

If I’m not mistaken the great Southern Hotel was a block south of this intersection. It was rumored that Chief Keokuk was buried there according to the owner of distilled history.

If nobody can tell I’m this bored this evening. It’s mostly piss and vinegar. Don’t believe a word of it plz.
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Re: RE: Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by mindwaave »

Whitepanther wrote:None of which are SJW friendly.
Fuck 'em!
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Re: Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by Aerohog »

If it's on UO-it MUST be true.
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Re: Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by Whitepanther »

B-u-m-p
Before beginning I want to stress the reason why I believe this is one of those stories and/or topics that is fit for public discussion. As different as UE and organized caving are in approach or structure, both share the same hyper vigilance about not disclosing locations and things of that nature publicly and this is for good reason. Not everyone is suited for the dangers associated with those hobbies and sadly not everyone cares enough about the preservation of historically significant sites. The story you’re about to read has no entrance and it’s modern day existence has no confirmation. That’s my reasoning and if someone disagrees with it that’s fine but a concerted effort was made to ensure nothing is being compromised. Hope you enjoy.

The story of Carl Conrad and The Bremer Rathskeller where Budweiser was born

I spent more time than I’d care to admit chasing down various rabbit holes to investigate a random tip from someone who used to work as an entry level stocking clerk at Famous Barr decades ago. This guy never responded to private msg requests to ask specifics which was frustrating enough. But here’s what he claimed word for word.
“ Famous shipping
receiving docks were across
Locust in basement connected by
tunnel. In sub basement was
painters, decorators shop. Had
door in stone wall leading to cave.
Only top brass got to take look
inside. I was a... stockboy. Damn.”

Now is as good a time as any to state the history group post he made this statement on had nothing to do with caves or UE for that matter it was simply about the Railway Exchange Bldg and the old Famous Barr Dept store. It also deserves mention that maybe 1/4 of the time does leads to such claims have any kind of validity to them. If I’m one of you reading this then I’m asking what’s the real story then. In my experience each historic building tenants and employees tend to have stories and urban legend’s attached to them that there’s some modicum of truth to. In this case it’s a matter of right block wrong side of the street.

In 1876 Carl Conrad was returning to St. Louis after vacationing in Europe where he first tried a lager style beer at a monastery in southern Bohemia that he felt had great potential back home. He promptly contacted his friend Adolphus Busch upon his return and commissioned him to create a similar product. Busch tapped into the purity laws of brewing that were traced back to a town called Budweis in what would later become known as the Czech Republic. Not only did Busch’s finalized brew surpass the expectations Conrad had, but he also implemented a revolutionary new process called pasteurization to prevent the beer from spoiling. Conrad was not a brewer by trade, he was an importer of fine wines, brandy’s, and cognac’s from around the globe. As soon as he had the finished product he filed his paperwork to secure a trademark of the recipe, label, and name which got final approval a few years later. That same year in 1876 Conrad invested everything he had into a new operation called Bremer Rathskeller which once stood at the southeastern quadrant of the block the old shopping mall St. Louis Centre was built on in the mid 80’s. I realize I’m skipping around a bit here but you might recall a recent news story from a few weeks ago about the original white label Budweiser. That document was found by the St. Louis Recorder of Deeds Office buried in its archives since inquiring with them about Bremer Rathskeller. The very first Budweiser ever sold was brewed, bottled, aged, and cooled in a network of underground vaults beneath St. Louis Centre.

Conrad somehow managed to become victim to his own success just seven years into this lucrative business when he filed for bankruptcy in 1883. Though historian’s and author’s have made assertions that a glass bottle shortage caused Conrad to falter by every indication he expanded his refrigerated rail car delivery network far too quickly in my opinion. When he filed bankruptcy his largest creditor was ironically Adolphus Busch’s father in law Eberhart Anheuser and a gentleman’s agreement was reached to dissolve the money owed and to employ Conrad at the Bavarian Brewery which would be renamed a decade later as Anheuser Busch to signify Busch’s leadership and success in the enterprise.

The street collapse that swallowed a car appears to have been a void beneath Locust that had nothing to do with Bremer Rathskeller. This legal easement was established during the planning stages of mall construction that gave Famous Barr continued access to a tunnel built sometime after 1913 which allowed merchandise to be moved into their building from a former warehouse that had shipping and receiving access via loading docks which the Railway Exchange Bldg didn’t have. The warehouse was torn down and that’s the reason for the easement. It’s not clear as to whether or not any part of the Bremer Rathskeller cellar system survived St. Louis Centre construction. There was one newspaper article describing it as 19 vaults in all which would typically mean barrel vaults of masonry construction connected by a common groin or barrel vaulted common area. AB continued utilizing the Bremer through the 1880’s and was reported to have expanded it under their ownership but to be fair the description of that news story could’ve easily been above ground expansion. By the late 1890’s AB pulled out of the Bremer and the building and cellars were taken over shortly afterwards by the Columbia Brewing Co as an overflow to store more beer in and to expand its office space.

In a weird way Conrad’s company name and usage of the German word Rathskeller which meant council cellar in translation set off an enormous trend in which hotels began converting almost useless basement levels into high end dining establishments they dubbed as Rathskeller’s. These usually consisted of decor or even masonry alterations to the lower level to imitate the appearance of brewery cellars. They began appearing all over the Midwest just a few short years after proving successful here locally which had several different Rathskeller themed restaurants. The first of these ironically appeared just one block west of Bremer or St. Louis Centre and it’s unclear if there was any sub-surface connection to the vaults built by Carl Conrad.

In closing at least for now since this isn’t the last of this story hopefully, what about that cave below the Railway Exchange Bldg that only top brass was allowed in? Remember when it was mentioned earlier that historic building tenants and employees tend to have a way of trying to preserve a locations history and that there’s generally some modicum of truth to it? This is a perfect example of that very thing where something nearby had an underground cavern or cellar system but not necessarily this building and it’s an honest mistake people make by my best guess. What the commenter most likely mistook as an entrance to the Bremer was actually another part of the legal easement established between the mall and the department store in which a chiller room for Famous Barr (and May Company) was built beneath the mall and either a separate utility pipe chase was ran adjacent to the freight tunnel beneath Locust or the same one was utilized for both functions. Even though St. Louis Centre is gone the structure was never demolished. What you see on that block today is just a fancy facelift to its exterior.

I guess there’s one last unique part to this novel I’ve written here. Somewhere under Locust there was a lunch room and cafeteria that employees of Famous and May Co used up til around the 80’s. Many many folks whom I inquired with in a private group of the downtown Famous Barr pointed out two interesting observations. 1-that a lot of fellow employees had no idea they were technically underneath the street and 2-that each and every one of these people commenting on it had described this area as very spooky or creepy or just possessing bad vibes altogether. After processing all the comments I attributed this description as most likely having something to do with the fact it’s the closest they’d ever been to doing some UrbEx of their own since it no longer had use for anything other than the storage of mannequins and wigs and things of that nature. Hope everyone enjoyed the background here as it stands now and by all means keep an eye on future developments of these few surrounding blocks.
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Re: Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by Whitepanther »

Work around for image hosting code generator found. To whom I asked to help get a few things uploaded you can disregard. Here's the supporting research info that went with the story.

Conrad's original label found 8/4/22
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Press release by St. Louis Recorder of Deeds Office 1 of 2
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Press release by St. Louis Recorder of Deeds Office 2 of 2
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Suspected entrance #1 to former freight tunnel leading under Locust to Railway Exchange
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Suspected entrance #2 to former freight tunnel leading under Locust to Railway Exchange
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Conrad's first red label
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Conrad's final label
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An amusing letter of doctor approval of Budweiser included in write up of Bremer Rathskeller
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Full article detailing visit to Bremer Rathskellar vaults
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Advertisement of Bremer
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Perhaps the closest thing to a view of Bremer Rathskellar we'll ever see
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Columbia Brewery takes over Bremer Rathskellar
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Details of the legal easement agreement between St. Louis Centre and May Co for loading dock and tunnel usage
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Announcement of Conrad's bankruptcy case 1 of 2
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Announcement of Conrad's bankruptcy case 2 of 2
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Another article referencing a visit to Bremer
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German newspaper ad for Bremer
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Whipple fire insurance map of 1898 after AB pulled out of Bremer
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Self explanitory
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Whipple fire insurance map but I can't recall which year
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Bremer fire insurance map
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Bremer fire insurance map
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Re: Sinkhole just swallowed a car at 6th and Locust

Post by mindwaave »

Fascinating shit, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to returning to STL from summer travels
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