South Broadway Cave Underneath Historic Carondelet Row?

Urban exploration in St. Louis, Missouri
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Bigspike
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South Broadway Cave Underneath Historic Carondelet Row?

Post by Bigspike »

Hey all, had an interesting conversation while getting my haircut the other day.

We were talking about STL history, old buildings, caves and whatnot and he brought up "The Caves of Saint Louis" book. I've seen mention of it on here several times. But he said there are dozens of small caves around the city and that the city has been buying the connected properties and holding them.

One example he gave was the row of houses opposite the Great Southern Bank on Broadway. After some research, this looks like it is the Watkins block, a historic and currently unoccupied (and falling apart) historic row of commercial properties; "the center of neighborhood life" according to this article on NextSTL -- https://nextstl.com/2017/10/carondolets ... hreatened/

Has anyone ever been here or heard more about this cave? Feel free to PM me, I would love to chat. Cheers!
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PANIC! on the Titanic
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Re: South Broadway Cave Underneath Historic Carondelet Row?

Post by PANIC! on the Titanic »

Bigspike wrote: One example he gave was the row of houses opposite the Great Southern Bank on Broadway.
I haven't heard of a cave in this location. I'm confused though - there is a Southern Commercial Bank here roughly at S Broadway and Nigel. Great Southern Bank is on Loughborough, and across from it is the enormous karst system that is Carondelet Park. I do know there's a cave there!

The next closest cave we know of is Klausmann Cave, thought to be around 8639 S Broadway, but it was sealed up probably sometime in 1964, according to the Lost Caves book.

I'd be interested in knowing if there's anything else here. This part of StL is pretty cavey.
Bigspike
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Re: South Broadway Cave Underneath Historic Carondelet Row?

Post by Bigspike »

PANIC! on the Titanic wrote:
Bigspike wrote: One example he gave was the row of houses opposite the Great Southern Bank on Broadway.
I haven't heard of a cave in this location. I'm confused though - there is a Southern Commercial Bank here roughly at S Broadway and Nigel. Great Southern Bank is on Loughborough, and across from it is the enormous karst system that is Carondelet Park. I do know there's a cave there!

The next closest cave we know of is Klausmann Cave, thought to be around 8639 S Broadway, but it was sealed up probably sometime in 1964, according to the Lost Caves book.

I'd be interested in knowing if there's anything else here. This part of StL is pretty cavey.
Hey Mister Titanic Penes, thanks for taking the time to respond and add some related info about clarifying which bank and the Caves info! I really appreciate that.

I'm gonna go back and chat with him and bring up the other bank you mentioned. I also want to clarify that he thinks the cave is under the Watkins block and not one of the neighboring buildings.

Will report back.
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PUNKAHONTAS
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RE: South Broadway Cave Underneath Historic Carondelet Row?

Post by PUNKAHONTAS »

Any other info ever shake out about this? It could make sense geographically because there was a known mushroom cave up Chippewa, closer to Grand. Underground water runoff has to end up somewhere, right? And I don't know if this would match up, but there is a mention of an underground oven on the Chippewa side of that block in a 1908 fire insurance map.
Some places I've creeped:
Continental building-early 90's
Des Peres and Mississippi rivers intersection-early 90's
round building in CWE on Lindell-95
Aqua Dome in Weldon Springs-96
Melba theater on MLK, just west of Jefferson-97
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