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The town was becoming a boom-town on its way "to
rivaling its better known neighbor of
St. Louis"--until
a flood in 1915 pulled down the three-span steel bridge from its
foundations. The nearby businesses burned to the ground after
the electric plants had been flooded, and they never re-opened. Two Thousand people were left homeless and unemployed, and several
drowned in the disaster. A new bridge was built, and was
pummeled again and again, until it too was destroyed. Many
locals say that a ghost haunts the
Meramec River,
and some have speculated that the spirit of the lynched John Buckner
roams the
Meramec
where a new bridge (Highway 141) crosses over the spot of the
lynching. They say his ghost longs for revenge on the town, and
is the continuing cause of the bad luck their town has endured.
Submitted by Joseph Wood, June,
2005. Mr. Wood is the author of
The Shadow of the Bridge,
(2005). To learn more about this incident, please read his book.
~~~~~~~~~
 Ghostly
Girls at the Edgewood Children's Center
Located in the southwest
St. Louis
suburb of Webster Groves, sits the historic Edgewood Children’s
Center. Today the center serves as a treatment center for abused
and abandoned children; however, the center has a long history dating
back almost 175 years. In 1834, the
St. Louis Association of
Ladies for the Relief of Orphan Children was created in response to
the many children left orphaned by the 1832 cholera epidemic. After expanding their facilities and services in 1848, the name was
changed to the
St. Louis Protestant Orphans'
Asylum
In 1869, the group merged with the
Western Sanitary Commission, a volunteer organization designed to
provide relief for veterans of the Civil War. As a result of the
merger, the group moved from its north
St. Louis location to the
Rock House in Webster Groves, originally the sight of Webster College
School for Boys purchased by the Western Sanitary Commission in 1861.
The Rock House, sitting
in the middle of the new 23 acre site already had history of its own. Constructed in 1850 by Reverend Artemus Bullard, the preacher successfully
operated a seminary for young men in the Rock House until his untimely
death in a train wreck in 1855. It is known that Reverend Bullard was a
strong abolitionist, and is believed that he used the Rock House as a way
station in the Underground Railroad, helping to move slaves into safety in
the north. It was believed that a tunnel, several blocks long, ran
beneath the Rock House acting as a hiding place for slaves escaping to the
north. The exit was sealed off in the 1890's after two children
became lost in it and died. |
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