(gentle music) - [Jim] For decades, pieces of lost St. Louis buildings have been salvaged, saved, and stored in Sauget Illinois.

And now the Pulitzer Arts Foundation thinks they deserve a closer look.

- A majority of the artifacts on display have never been publicly displayed before, other than on buildings.

- [Jim] A story about catching and releasing and why the fate of the monarch butterfly is so important.

And stopping in to pay respects to the man of the house.

Why, year after year, Robert Campbell gets another funeral.

It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(jazzy upbeat music) (jazzy upbeat music continues) (jazzy upbeat music continues) - I'm Brooke Butler and we're gonna start with Veronica Mohesky's story about an unusual art exhibit.

It features work the creators never intended to have or expected to see hanging on a gallery wall.

- [Veronica] St. Louis looks much different today than it did 50 or even 10 years ago.

Many older, cherished buildings have come down and new ones have sprung up.

A new exhibit at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation pays tribute to the St. Louis buildings that now only exist in memories.

- So the exhibition on view right now is "Urban Archeology: Lost Buildings of St. Louis," and it's a collaboration between the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and the National Building Arts Center.

- [Veronica] Stephanie Weissberg is the curator at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

- The exhibition looks at materials from the 1800s till the present day that were a part of St. Louis's architectural context and buildings that have been removed for one reason or another.

So it's not only looking at the architectural history of St. Louis, but also looking at the histories of salvage and preservation.

- [Veronica] The Urban Archeology Exhibit has five different sections, each dedicated to a different theme or area in the city.

- Paul McKee's development, it's a vacant building for a long time but before that it was a beloved community small business.

- [Veronica] Michael Allen is the Executive Director of the National Building Arts Center.

- A majority of the artifacts on display have never been publicly displayed before, other than on buildings.

So we have artifacts in the show, like the facade panels from the Rivoli Theater in downtown St. Louis, this was a Italian Renaissance building that had been in crates since 1983 when that building was demolished.

This is the first time they've ever been upright and on display since they were on that building.

- [Veronica] Other parts of the exhibit include a fragment from the Culver House, which was demolished in 2022.

This lion's head from the Buder building.

A handmade brick from before the Civil War and more.

And while a collection of pieces of lost buildings are in the exhibit, many more can be found at the National Building Arts Center in Sauget, Illinois.

- This is our iron and steel yard.

It's probably the largest collection of built environment and building arts materials in the country and one of the largest in the world.

- [Veronica] Emery Cox is the archives and collections manager at the National Building Arts Center.

He says the collection started in the 1970s with their late founder, Larry Giles's, salvage business.

In 2004, "Living St. Louis's," Patrick Murphy, interviewed Giles.

- I envision it remaining in St. Louis and being part of a public trust.

It would be useful to anyone interested in materials, the history of architecture, building technologies and conservation, design.

St. Louis is really one of a handful of American cities that's essential for an understanding of American architecture.

- By 2002, he incorporated the nonprofit, St. Louis Building Arts Foundation.

Then in 2005, the organization acquired this site and for a long time, most of the energy was put into renovating the campus itself.

It wasn't until after Larry's death in 2021 that we really started to put on a public face.

- [Veronica] The campus spans over 12 acres and has thousands of artifacts from lost buildings from across the US.

One of the most interesting pieces is a roughly 30 foot replica of the Statue of Liberty.

- In May of this year, the Brooklyn Museum transferred the statue to us.

It's a pressed metal steel repousse technique sculpted in 1902 in Manhattan, placed on top of a commercial warehouse, and then taken down about 100 years later, when the building was renovated.

Then it sat in the parking lot of the Brooklyn Museum until it was transferred here.

- [Veronica] Eventually, Cox says the smaller Lady Liberty will stand upright in Sauget with the Gateway Arch in the background.

And more people have come to see the statue since the Urban Archeology Exhibit opened in September of 2023.

- The number of people who went to the Pulitzer, like who attended the opening, was greater than all of our attendance here last year.

And a lot of those people have become interested in what's going on at our Sauget campus.

So we've, probably, at least doubled our inquiries and traffic.

- [Veronica] Attendees get to see incredible artifacts from St. Louis at the Urban Archeology Exhibit but they also get to offer their opinions about our city.

There's an interactive section that allows visitors to mark and write about St. Louis landmarks that are important to them.

- It would be irresponsible to have this kind of an exhibition leave itself as some kind of definitive statement, when the forces of change, the fact of demolition and the efforts to conserve memory and mark what's important are ongoing and will continue as long as St. Louis is still a city.

So we wanted to create a space in which visitors can participate in offering their version of the city, marking places that are significant, both present and lost.

- [Veronica] But whether you go to the Urban Archeology exhibit, the National Building Arts Center, or both, Stephanie Weissberg says these experiences can help St. Louis area residents understand our past, present, and future.

- That's the power of museums.

That's the power of an institution, like the National Building Arts Center.

And I think it was the vision of the founder, Larry Giles, that these objects would be studied and understood in the future to help inform the decisions that we make now.

So there are so many layers of history that it's important for people to know and understand in order to be able to make informed decisions about our present day but also to maybe imagine better futures.

- [Veronica] The Urban Archeology exhibit at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation will be open until February 4th, 2024.

(bright music) - I imagine if I just randomly ask people to name one type of butterfly and kept score, the monarch would be the runaway, or flutter away, winner.

It's showy and recognizable, and this is important, it's not as common as it used to be.

It's threatened for a number of reasons and that's a concern for environmentalists.

But as Jim Kirchherr found out, also something of an opportunity Because, well, people care about the monarch.

- [Jim] This annual event at the Weldon Spring Site Interpretive Center in St. Charles County is called Monarch Madness, although it's about as tame and family friendly as you can get.

This is the nature area developed on the site of what had been the factory that processed uranium for atomic bombs and the huge mound that seals the hazardous materials from the cleanup.

That's what first catches your attention.

But today the star of the show was the little monarch butterfly.

- Look at me.

- Cheese.

- [Jim] You could stop to hear about the amazing multi-generational migration of the monarchs to Mexico and back and about the disappearance of the native flowering plants they depend on.

- Nectar plants, 'cause as they're making their trip down, they need to bulk up, 'cause they don't feed when they're down here.

They have to live off their fat.

- [Jim] The environmental and gardening groups were all set up here with information and lots of native plants.

But a big attraction was the catch and release.

The folks at the Missouri Department of Conservation sent folks out after a quick tutorial - Take our net and go swoop, like that.

And then the butterfly will try to fly up into the net.

Do you have any questions?

- Whoa, these nets are giant!

- Well, we're hoping to catch some monarchs.

- [Jim] Have you ever done this before?

- Yeah.

- And?

What was the experience like?

- I think we caught a couple.

- [Jim] Any monarchs that would be caught on this day would be brought back to the tent where they'd be tagged and set free.

So I'm fascinated by the idea that you can tag a monarch.

So can you explain to me how you do that?

- And it basically is just a tiny little sticker that we're gonna stick on their wing and it's done in a very specific place so that it doesn't impede their flight as well.

- [Jim] She didn't have any real monarchs yet but she showed us how it's done using this monarch model.

- [Amy] And I just press it on for a few seconds.

- [Jim] It doesn't do any harm and they're capable of just flying away, which is the point of all of this.

- And if butterflies are found, either in Mexico or if they're just found deceased, someone can report that and they can contact monarch watch and report the tag number.

And so whenever that happens- - So I could do that, if I saw?

- Yeah.

- [Jim] Oh, that'd be cool.

- And if you report it to them, then it kind of, it gives them location information.

So it's kind of like a tracker.

- So this is not just a prop.

I would totally want to catch a monarch, bring it back and see how they tag it.

But I'm told it's not likely to happen.

It's a great day for people.

It's cool, it's overcast, but not a great day for monarchs.

They like it warm, they like it sunny.

And in fact, the monarchs on this day were a no-show unless you stopped here.

- They hang from the chrysalis to pump the fluid out of their body into the wings.

- [Jim] Patty Berry is a member of Wild Ones, an organization of native plant home gardeners.

- But we are dedicated to saving the Earth, one yard at a time.

And what we're doing is bringing back the wild and nature into our yards by bringing back- - [Jim] And that's what led her to this.

Not just attracting butterflies but raising them.

- And I'm hooked.

I'm hooked.

I always call the monarchs my gateway insect.

- [Jim] In fact, that's what Monarch Madness is really all about.

The popular butterfly is the draw, the gateway.

But once inside, well the message is clear - But it's really about all insects.

And so one of our most important pollinators is are bees and they're also in decline.

So any planting that you're doing for monarchs is gonna help other pollinators as well.

(indistinct chatter) - All right, we ready?

- Yep.

- This is a male.

It's got black dots right here that signifies it's a male.

Females don't have the black dots.

It's a little bit cool today, so it may not wanna fly.

There we go.

- Heading to Mexico.

- Oh my goodness!

Bye bud, I'll miss you!

Bye bye!

- This is the time of year when people embrace the spooky and the mysterious.

It's also a time when the folks who belong to the St. Louis Mourning Society hold a funeral, actually a reenactment at the Campbell House.

A few years ago, we went to see just how people used to say goodbye.

(soft spooky music) (soft spooky music continues) - So Robert Campbell's death took place on October 16th, 1879.

And his funeral took place here in the parlor of his home on Sunday, October 19th at 2:00 PM.

Well I think the group just had a really innate interest in this time period.

And specifically the mourning practices and customs of of that time period and the Victorians.

And there's not a lot of information out for public dissemination, other than the spooky or horrific.

- Well, tonight I'm gonna be talking about post-mortem photography and some of the myths that surround it today.

But I talk about all kinds of different topics, depending on the events that we have.

There will be someone else here tonight that will be the widow.

So that's not my role today.

- A lot of the floor arrangements that you do see, they're design come directly from that newspaper clipping because we have information that tells exactly what was in this room and around his coffin.

All right, so if you notice the mirrors inside of this room, they've been draped with black crepe or cloth, even the mirrors in the hallways.

A lot of people feel like that was a way for people not to see their sorrow, if they had to look in the mirror.

Also some reasons why they would be draped, so to keep from being vain.

This was not a time for vanity, not a time to really pay attention to what your appearance was, 'cause you're supposed to be in mourning.

You would oftentimes see even statuary and stuff draped with cloth of black.

We really wanna do more educational presentations to give people more factual information and maybe even try to shed some light on some of the why some of the practices that were followed were followed.

If there were, the clocks in the house, specifically if there was a clock in the room where the person had passed, they would be stopped at the time of death.

And I don't know, if in Robert's case, that the piano would've been removed from the room, but most of the time, any musical instruments whatsoever would be removed from the front parlor where the body was laid out.

- Prior to World War I, it was a very personal and family affair and there was much more of an opportunity to say goodbye.

And then by that era afterwards, we've turned it into kind of a business and you dropped an individual off and you didn't see 'em til the other side.

And all of that preparation was taken away.

Again, by having Robert Campbell here at the house, the family said their proper goodbye and could really make that necessary part of the mourning process.

(soft spooky music) (dramatic upbeat music) (keys clacking) - [Jim] This week in 1940, 83 years ago, thousands of people were in St. Louis for a national beer brewing convention.

It was just seven years after the end of prohibition and brewers were touting the superiority of their post-prohibition beer.

The beer had changed, but a lot of drinkers were saying, they liked the old stuff better.

But the bosses of America's breweries had bigger worries.

There was another war in Europe, which the US might get into, and there was concern that anti-German sentiment could once again turn into anti beer sentiment.

And they were trying to get ahead of that.

They needed to establish their patriotism and support for national defense.

But more important, they were working to have Washington declare beer brewing an essential wartime industry.

Brewers Association President, George Sippel's message, was that beer is good for you.

And he said no one could argue that our soldiers and sailors in their camps are not entitled to and benefited by a bottle of beer after a hard day's work.

And in fact, when we were in the war, beer brewing was one of our essential wartime industries, with 15% of production going to the military.

But more than staying in business, the brewers knew they were building business.

A 1941 issue of "Brewers Digest" said this was a chance, "To cultivate a taste for beer in millions of young men who will eventually constitute the large beer-consuming section of our population."

They were right.

It's been said that World War II saved the brewing industry and established American lagers, think Budweiser, as the dominant American beer.

And the groundwork?

It was being laid in St. Louis this week in history, 83 years ago.

(triumphant music) - Finally, St. Louis waited a long time to get a Major League Soccer team.

And few expected that in this first season it would be one of the league's best teams.

But when Anne-Marie Berger did this story back in January, it was already in contention for the feel good story of the year.

(upbeat music) - [Anne-Marie] In August of 2019, Major League Soccer announced what soccer fans in St. Louis had been campaigning for for years.

- It's hard to imagine that we were able to have a thriving professional soccer league and that it could exist in the United States and Canada without having the city of St. Louis being a part of it.

Well imagine no more because St. Louis, with its incredibly rich soccer history, not only deserves an MLS team, but has earned one.

(crowd cheers) - [Anne-Marie] This was validating news for our region, especially after Stan Kroenke took off with the Rams and cursed our city as not being able to support three major league teams.

- Let's go.

- Yeah, let's go!

City!

- St. Louis soccer fans proved Kroenke wrong.

Season tickets for the 28th MLS expansion team, St. Louis City SC, sold out immediately, and in November, when the brand new state-of-the-art City Park Stadium hosted a pre-season friendly between the City 2 team and European powerhouse, Bayer Leverkusen, the 22,500 seat stadium was at maximum capacity.

(crowd cheers) It is a cold 30 degrees tonight but it hasn't stopped the crowds and it hasn't stopped their enthusiasm.

- St. Louis, we love it.

Soccer's here.

Yes!

- This would not have happened if it wasn't for all the support we got from the people of the region, truthfully - Carolyn Kindle is the president and CEO of St. Louis City, a team her family, the Taylors of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, are the majority owners.

I guess it's not really surprising because I know the history of soccer in St. Louis, but the immediate fan response is a little bonkers.

Like it was an automatic buy-in, there was automatic loyalty, there was automatic whatever's coming out with the logo on it, people are buying it, people are wearing it.

Were you pleasantly surprised or did you absolutely know that all of that was coming?

- Oh, I was blown away.

I knew we were gonna get support.

I did not expect it at the level that we got it.

- [Anne-Marie] St. Louis has long been associated with soccer.

Back in 1950, six of the starters on the US World Cup team were from the East coast.

The other five were from St. Louis, four of them from the Italian neighborhood known as the Hill.

The president of the US Soccer Federation at the time, Walter Giesler, was also from St. Louis and viewed his hometown as a hotbed for soccer talent.

In 2010, Nine PBS produced a documentary recounting St. Louis soccer history.

- [Narrator] In 1959, the National Collegiate Athletic Association first offered colleges the opportunity to compete for a national title.

For the past 80 years, college soccer had been dominated by teams from the northeast, Penn, Harvard, Princeton, and Penn State.

(players shouting indistinctly) But the first NCAA championship was won by a Midwestern school.

- [Commentator] The NCAA championship playoffs at the University of Connecticut on a wet Thanksgiving weekend.

Sloshing toward the title, the Billikens of St. Louis University, as they played the University of Bridgeport.

This was the first full season for varsity soccer at St. Louis.

And when they finally spliced that sodden ball into the goal, they had placed an unusual story in the annals of sports.

- [Narrator] College soccer had joined the big leagues.

And this first championship in 1959 marked a historic turning point, showing colleges throughout America that soccer had been taken to a new level.

- [Speaker] St. Louis, they set the bar, and it was so much higher than the rest of us.

- Since that college championship, St. Louis has had multiple professional soccer teams, but the games national popularity fluctuates, competing with other major league sports, like the NFL and NBA.

Major League Soccer has spent the last few decades working to gain national loyalty by increasing the number of teams, adding star power, and the construction of brand new dedicated stadiums and practice amenities.

St. Louis already had a soccer fan base, and now along with its very own team, has a brand new state-of-the-art stadium and training facility in the heart of the city.

Let's talk about the intentionality of everything, from the location, the name, it's all city.

So we've got the practice fields, we've got the stadium, all in the city, city's in the name.

- Well, so we actually asked for people to submit names.

So we had over 5,000 people and City or some form of City was clearly the number one choice.

But then we started to see how City really kind of fits into the entire region.

- This isn't the first time the Taylor family has backed or initiated transformative projects in the region.

CityArchRiver, Forest Park, Great Rivers Greenway, just to name a few.

They view an MLS team as a way to put St. Louis on the international map where it belongs.

How did the family come up with this?

Just sitting around the table one day and like, "Hey let's go do this."

- No, but it's a great story to tell.

So you know my family obviously is very passionate about St. Louis and the region and we were sort of looking for what's our next big project.

So it was really 2018 in the summer that my uncle came to my mom and I and said, "I have this crazy idea.

What do you think about going after a professional soccer team?"

And not knowing what I was saying at the time, I'm like, "I think that's a great idea."

And he's like, "Perfect.

Meet me downstairs in a half an hour."

And I think what we found as we started to do our homework was, first of all, it has a huge international draw.

So we thought it was a great way to bring some of these amazing micro communities together to celebrate a team in their backyard.

But also, it's a great way to recruit people to the St. Louis area.

And so we were just so excited when we found out more and more about the sport.

- This is a business.

So much private funding was put into creating this, which is also rare.

How is this a profitable business?

- But this has never been about profit.

It's been about elevating St. Louis back to where it needs to be.

With all the geospatial activity, the agriculture activity, we really wanted to find a way to make sure that people not only stayed here but we were also recruiting, whether it's businesses and families and students.

And so we just, again, go back to we thought that this international sport would be one of the many things that the region has to offer to be something that is attractive to, like I said, families, businesses, so on and so forth.

(upbeat music) - [Anne-Marie] The stadium seats just under 23,000 fans.

Every seat will be within 120 feet of the pitch.

The pitch sits 40 feet below street level to intentionally create a loud fan experience.

(fans roaring) City Park will host about 20 regular season MLS games each year.

(fans roaring) And the first official home game for St. Louis City SC will be March 4th, 2023.

(upbeat music) - And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Keep sending us your thoughts and ideas at NinePBS.org/LSL.

I'm Brooke Butler, thanks for joining us.

(jazzy upbeat music) (jazzy upbeat music continues) (jazzy upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Living St. Louis is funded in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.