history images Mound City on the Mississippi Home Page
image menu Buildings, Sites, and Objects People, Places, and Things Events, Incidents, and Occurrences Bibliography

structures


Name:  Cupples Station Complex
Address:  7th to llth, Clark Avenue to Poplar Street
Architectural Firm/Architect:   Eames and Young
Alterations:  Several of the original buildings were razed for construction of Busch Stadium and Highway 40.
Designation: City Landmark, National Register of Historic Places,
History:
After the completion of Eads Bridge and the tunnel which connected the bridge with the Union Depot railway yards, Samuel Cupples and Robert S. Brookings saw an opportunity to locate warehouses with ready rail access to the yards. Their new warehousing idea saved considerable time in freight handling and was enthusiastically adopted by the local shipping interests. The resulting large group of multi-story buildings transformed a previously useless part of the city into a highly productive area. Since all of the warehouses were not accessible by rail, they were connected by a system of tunnels and bridges. A system of hydraulic elevators was provided for vertical access. The buildings were massively constructed and made as fire resistant as was possible.

Cupples Station played a major role in maintaining the preeminence of St. Louis as a railroad center in the first half of the twentieth century.

Architecturally, the Cupples Station buildings are of national importance. Although treated in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, the buildings are strikingly modern in feeling. Rounded brick cornices and soaring arches are common features of all of the buildings and serve to unify them. Each building, however, is different from the others in detail. Originally, there were 20 buildings in the complex.




People
Brookings, Robert S.
 Cupples, Samuel
Cupples Company,
Eames, William S.
 Eames & Young,
Schoemehl, Vincent C.
 Young, Thomas Crane

Events
Cupples Station construction
 Laclede Chooses Site of St. Louis







Cupples Station Complex
Cupples Station Complex
Cupples Station Complex
Cupples Station Complex
Cupples Station Complex
Cupples Station Complex
Cupples Station Complex

 

 

people • structures • events • sources • home
about historic preservation• new entries• 4 kids only• map it!

This site was made possible by: the City of St. Louis Planning and Urban Design Agency and
the City of St. Louis Community Information Network.

This site was funded in part by Federal funds administered by the Missouri State Historical Preservation Office, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, The National Park Service, and the U.S. Department of the Interior.


Version 1.0