Combat Sports Historian and Martial Artist
Posts about the history of St. Louis, Missouri, family history, classic film, and miscellaneous history.
H. H. Holmes was America’s first known serial killer in the modern definition of the word. Holmes operated “the Murder Castle”, a Chicago hotel during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Holmes would eventually be convicted of sixteen murders but may have murdered more than 100 people during his operation of the hotel. What is less well known is that St.
After Theodore Roosevelt won reelection in his own right during November 1904, TR impetuously announced he would not run for another term. His inner circle, particularly his wife Edith, would think the decision a mistake. However, once Theodore Roosevelt made a pronouncement, he intended to keep his word. Roosevelt picked his Secretary of War and former Governor of the Phillipines
Sunday morning, August 12, 1900, St. Louis Police arrested four former Transit Line streetcar workers for blowing up the Olive Street line on Maryland Avenue between N. Taylor and N. Euclid Avenues on the previous night at 11:00 p.m. Police arrested Maurice Brennan, Fred E. Northway, James Schwartz and James Finnesey. Police found 30 pounds of dynamite and 30 feet
In one of those strange coincidences of history, the Streetcar Union President Sherman C. Patterson was stabbed by a union machinist named Edward Canty after a saloon disagreement. At a time when several of his opponents in the 1900 St. Louis Streetcar Strike would love to have seen him sent on a train out of town, Patterson is stabbed by
On Monday evening, July 16, 1917, St. Louis Police Officer Julius H. Petring assigned to the North Market Division entered a rooming house at 2301 N. Market Street. Petring asked the proprietor William Dietrich to rent a room for him and his wife. His “wife” was his recently divorced girlfriend Freda Hagenmeyer. Officer Petring had been seeing Freda Hagenmeyer, who
When I started researching the family history, I only knew about two of my great-grandmother Caroline “Lee” Ellis’ nee Johannpeter’s siblings. My grandfather told me a lot about his Uncle “Jules”, Julius Johannpeter. Grandpa lived with Uncle Jules from the time he left Missouri Military Academy in 1932 until he married my grandmother, Alvina Ellis nee Mosblech in 1938. Grandpa
The picture of Cornelius O’Keefe in the book, In The Line of Duty: St. Louis Police Officers Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice by Barbara Miksicek, David McElreath and Major Stephen Pollihan, struck me the first time I saw it. With his hair parted down the middle and a big mustache, I could see him walking the streets of Downtown St. Louis
Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum (1940) starring Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan is my favorite Charlie Chan film. Charlie Chan is searching for a murderer in a wax museum. The wax museum is a front for a plastic surgeon, who changes the appearance of wanted criminals for a price. The surgeon Dr. Cream, played by C. Henry Gordon, also
Uncle Oscar Von Burg and Aunt Dorothy Von Burg nee Mosblech were my grandparents’ closest friends. Grandma Ellis and Aunt Dorothy were sisters separated in age by about a year and a half. Grandpa Ellis and Uncle Oscar became close friends when they were dating the sisters. Neither Uncle Oscar nor Grandpa danced, so they would escort Grandma and Aunt
On November 7, 1890, Chief of Detectives William Desmond brought in Pat Kennedy, a low-level St. Louis crook, who was suspected of stealing 20 cents from a cigar store on North 9th Street. A 3rd District St. Louis Police Officer captured Kennedy after he robbed a Miss Minnie Mullaney at 16th Street and Franklin Avenue. Kennedy proved a first-rate coward,