Beaumont Telephone Exchange Building, St. Louis Missouri

Date added: August 31, 2023
Locust Street Elevation (2005)

The Beaumont Telephone Exchange Building, located at 2654 Locust Street, in St. Louis (Independent City), Missouri, was erected in 1902 at the southeast corner of Locust and Beaumont from plans by St. Louis architectural firm Eames & Young. Constructed as a branch office and exchange, the building housed the company's long distance toll board, in addition to periods of duty as a local exchange. Beaumont was one of several exchange branches constructed by Bell in the few years prior to the 1904 World's Fair. The building was built during a period of great growth of the telephone industry in the United States and in St. Louis, as epitomized by the competition between Bell and the Kinloch Telephone Company. Telephone branches and offices operated by these companies were uniquely integral to the rapid development of telephone communications and thus dotted the urban landscape of St. Louis in the first decade of the Twentieth century. Very few remain standing today. The Beaumont Telephone Exchange is the only extant Bell Telephone long distance toll branch in St. Louis and is one of the city's earliest surviving examples of a local exchange. The property continued to serve a telecommunications function through 1994.

Prior to Alexander Graham Bell's patent of the telephone, the only means of instant communication available to the American public was the telegraph. During the 1870s, the American District Telegraph Company (ADT) local office provided a dispatcher service in St. Louis. With the turn of the dial on a home machine, customers could relay through electronic impulse a specific, prearranged message. Upon receipt of the signal, a dispatcher would send out a runner to call and complete the requested task.

In November of 1877, Alexander Graham Bell's American Telephone & Telegraph company granted a license to ADT to expand the existing service with the introduction of the commercial telephone in St. Louis. At first, general manager George Durant leased equipment for customers' private lines, which usually connected only two locations. He then went into the business of connecting telephone lines for direct communication between two or more points. By the following February, after a visit from a Bell representative, Durant decided it would be more efficient and profitable to route all calls through a central switchboard. Opened in April 1878 with twelve subscribers, the exchange was the first in what would become the Southwestern Bell territory (including present-day Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas).

Like all early exchanges, the St. Louis service used a modified telegraph board to connect calls. Switchboard and operators were located in the Third National Bank at 417 Olive (demolished) until an 1885 fire destroyed the office. Exchange headquarters were moved to the southeast corner of Fourth and Pine, but within a few short years, rapid growth led to the commission of a new signature building. Designed by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, the Bell Telephone building at 902 Olive was completed in 1891. The switchboard room was located on the sixth floor and the telephone company used half of an additional floor as offices.

The main exchange at 902 Olive also included a separate toll board for calls made beyond the existing Missouri Bell system. Long distance calls were not covered by the monthly telephone service fee and thus subscribers were charged an additional amount for these connections. For example, a five-cent toll rate was in effect between St. Louis and suburban Webster Groves at the turn of the century. The original Bell toll service in St. Louis did not cover great distances, however. Lines to Belleville, Illinois, were laid in 1885, with lines extended to St. Charles, Alton, and suburban Kirkwood and Webster Groves by the end of the decade. A more aggressive expansion of toll lines emerged in the 1890s, as circuits to Troy and St. Clair in Illinois and towns including Wentzville, Farmington, Festus, Cuba and Poplar Bluff were developed. Toll calls to areas beyond required a third-party service, such as the Long Lines Company, which operated lines to the East from an exchange in Madison, Illinois. The Bell Telephone Company of Missouri's growth in St. Louis City required additional space for a local switchboard at the main exchange. To create ample space for the new equipment, the long distance toll board was removed from 902 Olive and installed in the new Beaumont Exchange in 1902.

"Beaumont exchange, at Beaumont and Locust streets, the last branch constructed, is said to be one of the best equiped [sic] of modern exchanges," proclaimed a 1903 St. Louis Republic article. The rapid advancement in telephone communications at the turn of the century necessitated a state-of-the-art facility, and St. Louis architects Eames & Young were qualified to design such a building. William S. Eames, FAIA (1857-1915), and Thomas C. Young, FAIA (1858-1934), both studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis before travel and further study in Europe. Eames was Deputy Commissioner for Buildings in St. Louis from 1883-85, during which time he designed the landmark Bissell Street Water Tower north of Hyde Park. Young worked for the Boston office of Ware & Van Brunt and E. M. Wheelwright before he and Eames formed their St. Louis partnership in 1886. The firm quickly developed into a lucrative practice including houses for the elite in St. Louis' new private places. Robert S. Brookings, owner of the land at Seventh and Chestnut and a partner in the Samuel Cupples Woodenware Company, was a consistent client of the firm commissioning two houses (1888 and 1897) and the massive warehouse complex known as Cupples Station (1894-1915). Cupples Station represented advancement in distribution efficiency, its buildings noted nationally for functionality and mechanical features. The particular machinery and equipment found within a telephone exchange, along with the miles of coil and wire implicit in its operation, likewise required careful consideration of space and function, albeit on a smaller scale than the Cupples project. The gap between the industries served by the architects is filled with a declaration from the Bell Company itself: "The railway and the steamship have seemed to annihilate distance; the telephone obliterates both distance and time together."

Eames & Young designed two St. Louis branch offices for the Bell Telephone Company of Missouri. In addition to the Beaumont branch, the architects submitted plans for the Forest Branch at 5144 Delmar, constructed in early 1904. The new exchanges were built to accommodate growth in the western end of the city, though the Forest office housed a local switchboard only. Each was built to alleviate volume at the Lindell exchange (later Henry L. Wolfner Library), downtown offices and exchanges, and in anticipation of the 1904 World's Fair. Coupled with the earlier Lindell exchange, the Eames & Young branches created a discernible main artery direct from the heart of downtown and into the burgeoning, more affluent areas of western St. Louis. The Forest branch is no longer extant. The Beaumont exchange remains as the only known, surviving example of the work of Eames & Young within this commercial building type.

In late 1879, when ADT became the Bell Telephone Company of Missouri and the following year, the company counted about 600 subscribers to the new technology. A decade later, Bell claimed some 2,885 subscribers. By 1898, there were approximately 5,000 Bell subscribers in St. Louis; in 1904, there were over 20,000. The rapid increase in customers necessitated quick dissemination of phone lines through local exchanges. Bell branch offices multiplied profusely. The Sidney and Riverside exchanges opened in existing buildings in 1897. The Lindell exchange board was placed into service in 1899 in a Bell-commissioned building on Olive. In 1903, a local office and exchange opened on south Grand Boulevard, and the following year the Benton and Ferguson exchanges opened, each in rented buildings. To further assist the rapidly increasing volume, the toll board in the Beaumont exchange was joined by a local switchboard upon branch opening. The open floorplan assured ample space for the equipment required for each, as the length of the exchange was obstructed only by support columns.

Spaciousness was a necessity: marketing pamphlets used by the Bell Companies at the 1904 World's Fair indicate that a typical board could run for over two hundred feet and along three sides of a room. The elongated floorplan utilized by architects Eames & Young in the design of the Beaumont building provided excellent accommodation for the switchboard, and also offered the appropriate space in the center of the room required for monitors. At the Fair, Bell claimed emphatically that the most up-to-date boards could manage lines from 9,600 telephones and might include 4,000 miles of wire, or "enough if stretched in one long line to reach from St. Louis to Liverpool." Most wires were hidden between panel and wall. A contemporary telephone exchange also included a terminal room from which outside wires and lines were fed through a distribution rack, sorted and arranged, then sent to the appropriate switchboard. Each exchange also included a power room with generators that supplied electrical energy for telephone transmissions via storage batteries. Space within a branch building was devoted to employee welfare, as well, with rest and recreation rooms provided for employees. The relatively compact size of early telephone switchboard stations allowed flexibility of building space, but in twenty-five short years the acceleration of telephone technology required a thoughtful, complementary physical plant in which to house machinery.

The up-to-date facility and equipment of the Beaumont exchange articulates not only the extensive improvements in technology in the several decades since George Durant's introduction of the telephone to St. Louis, but also the brief, and at times fierce, competition between the Bell Telephone Company of Missouri and upstart Kinloch Telephone company. The new company capitalized on the expiration of Durant's original patents and began subscriptions in 1897. For over two decades, it operated a separate service and aggressively sought to have 6,000 of its telephones to the ears of subscribers within five years. The Wainwright Building downtown was the first wired for the emerging competitor in 1897. Such a prestigious early client indicates the threat posed for Bell by the rival company. Furthermore, Kinloch introduced a new, multiple switchboard that provided the possibility of capacity four times larger than the boards used by Bell. The concept was thought to decrease the need for branch exchanges in its initial phases, though developments proved this impossible within a few years.

Subscription prices for the new service undercut those offered by Bell and though difficulties emerged in the alternative switchboard design, Kinloch developed rapidly. By 1899 its Executive Committee authorized expansion into long distance with the associated, but independent, Kinloch Long Distance Company of Missouri. The long lines branch contracted for exchanges as far away as Springfield, Illinois, and Jefferson City by early 1904. The reach in distance over its own lines of Kinloch Telephone's long distance arm quickly exceeded that of Bell Telephone Company. By 1905, the Kinloch Long Distance Company consolidated with the Kinloch Telephone. As the Beaumont Branch was placed into long distance service, the threat of competition between long distance providers was very palpable. The importance of a modern toll telephone exchange was considerable to a company susceptible to this direct competition.

In 1902, a Kinloch branch was constructed at 4400 Delmar-ahead of the Bell Company of Missouri's nearby Forest exchange. Kinloch also established an exchange on the World's Fair grounds the following year, high-profile positioning for its services. The Kinloch and Bell lines were not connected; both companies had independent services and subscribers. A customer of one company could not communicate with those of the other service. While a few businesses subscribed to each, that arrangement was expensive and not practical. This escalated the rivalry. Hugh Harris, contract agent for Bell Telephone Company, identified the West End of St. Louis (currently Central West End) as the battleground for war with Kinloch. His weapon of choice in combat was class consciousness: he sought to make the Bell directory the social directory of St. Louis. The Bell Company had exceptional infrastructure in the West End, with Forest connected to the Central Exchange via Lindell and Beaumont, and toll service provided through the latter. These Western exchanges both followed and anticipated the growth in that area of the city. Company history credits Harris in the suppression of the Kinloch competition, but the slower and more deliberate growth pattern followed by Bell undoubtedly was a key component to success.

within the City of St. Louis. The Beaumont exchange, an integral component to the strategically located east-west Bell telephone artery in West St. Louis, was an important factor in the continued dominance of the company in St. Louis. A centrally located (with respect to customers) long distance office was very important in an era in which communication quality suffered the further a subscriber was from the toll board. Phone battery power, generated at an exchange, and communication clarity were directly affected by distance. Hugh Harris assured that the influential West End customers would be only one or two exchanges removed from the Bell long distance branch, which optimized service.

By 1920, Kinloch counted over 30,000 subscribers, fewer than a third of the phones in St. Louis. In 1923, a merger with Southwestern Bell was consummated. The number of telephone stations in the city approached 170,000. Major additions to the Beaumont exchange 1925 and 1927 reflect the impact of this merger, as the subscription increase required a larger facility in which to operate. The expansion of the building is also an expression of the 1926 introduction of the dial system in St. Louis, which contributed to the boost in telephone lines. Post-war additions in the 1940s occurred at the dawn of direct dialing, yet another advance in the industry that led to a half-million St. Louis customers by the early 1950s. The physical growth of the building reflects these general advances in communications during the first half of the Twentieth century, as well as the consolidation and expansion of Southwestern Bell companies.

The name of the Bell Telephone Company of Missouri was formally changed to the Southwestern Telephone & Telegraph Company on March 22, 1913. This move was preceded by the transfer of exchanges operated by the Missouri and Kansas Telephone Company and others in southeast Missouri to the St. Louis service. Over the next twenty years, Southwestern Bell continued expansion with the purchase of additional telephone companies. During the same period, the telephone industry across the nation experienced similar growth, particularly the Bell Companies. As the areas covered by the companies grew to cover not just a city and its closest suburbs but a state or a region, the Beaumont Telephone Exchange likewise grew physically, with major additions to the Eames & Young building in 1921, 1925, 1927 and 1946. The Beaumont branch was retired from use in the early-1990s. It only served the Communications industry during its long history. When long distance toll operations completely vacated the exchange, the building still served as a telephone company office, operator training center and even regional headquarters for the Telephone Pioneers, a Bell-affiliated philanthropic and cultural organization. Current owners plan to convert the adaptable building space into apartment condominiums. The Bell Telephone Company of Missouri, in its lilting 1909 corporate history, The Pulse of a Metropolis, remarked that the "Bell system not only gives to the people of St. Louis the power to converse with another, but it puts them in communication with the outside world." Telephone subscribers passed on that long distance journey through the portal of the Beaumont exchange.

Building Description

The Beaumont Telephone Exchange, located at 2654 Locust Street in St. Louis, Missouri, is a multi-story office building primarily of steel and concrete construction, sheathed in brick with white-glazed terra cotta embellishments. The rectangular footprint of the original 1902 building, situated at the southeast corner of Locust and Beaumont Streets, grew into an E-shaped footprint through a string of additions. The earliest construction (west wing) exhibits plank and beam mill construction, sheathed in brick with terra cotta adornment and a granite watertable; a later addition extended the building southward, but incorporated original facade treatments. A mosaic-tile window was also incorporated into the structure in a later alteration. Subsequent additions take visual cues from the earlier construction, albeit with less detail and ornamentation. The three-story center wing and the larger six-story addition (east and main wings) are of steel and concrete, fireproof construction, enveloped by brick courses upon a granite watertable. White-glazed terra cotta detailing complementary to the original building, though not as elaborate or as pervasive, unifies all wings. Likewise, window size and fenestration is congruous across all elevations of the exchange, though the encasements found on later additions are without embellished surrounds. The E-shaped plan creates two courtyard spaces which open to Locust Street. Each is presently gated and predominately paved or filled with gravel. Recessed into each is an entryway. The easternmost entry is recessed within a glass and brick projected vestibule, while the westernmost entry is considerably more elaborate, with a limestone and terra cotta door surround.

The original telephone exchange at Beaumont and Locust was built from plans by St. Louis architects Eames and Young in 1902. Situated at the southeast corner of Locust and Beaumont Streets, the building measured 33 ft 4 in by 100 ft upon completion. The first major expansions by Bell Telephone Company of Missouri to its Beaumont facility occurred in 1921 and 1925. In 1921, the result was an extension of the building along the west (Beaumont) elevation, and in 1925, the introduction of a 32 ft by 85 ft, single-story addition to the roof. This roof addition connected to the upper story of a major, 130 ft by 130 ft addition designed by architect R. Timlin and constructed in 1927. The four-story addition introduced both a main and east wing and drastically increased the size of the telephone exchange. The new construction was L-shaped, and its union with the earlier building created a U-shaped footprint that opened toward Locust Street. A three-story center wing was built in 1946, congruent with the addition of two stories to the east and main wings. This resulted in a short, L-shaped tower upon this portion of the building. The main entrance to the exchange was situated along the Beaumont Street elevation in 1902. As subsequent additions and alterations reoriented the building along Locust, the primary point of entry shifted to two doorways recessed with the courtyards along the front facade.

Along the Locust Street (front) facade of the original Beaumont Exchange wing, a cut pink granite watertable is followed by two white-glazed terra cotta string courses at the basement level that run continuously along two elevations. Immediately above the foundation at this level are four rectangular windows asymmetrically located, one of which is an infill. The granite foundation provides a continuous sill for these windows while the upper of two string courses at basement level serves as a continuous lintel. This arrangement extends at the basement level in the courtyards and additional wings of the front facade as Locust Street slopes to the east. A third white-glazed terra cotta string course is introduced to the pattern, however, to compensate for the gradient. Across the front facade of the east wing, the courses are broken by a terra cotta-encased storefront, presently with brick infill. Its two bays extend the height of the raised basement story and are surrounded and divided by ornate white-glazed terra cotta panels. The east wing storefront rests beneath a segmented terra cotta cornice which projects from the upper string course at this story. The basement levels of the eastern, center, and main wings are above ground and are considered first stories. The eastern and alley elevations at this level are free of terra cotta embellishments, save for a single bay at the northeast corner of the building, which carries over the string courses and watertable arrangements from the abutting facade.

At the first and second story, the front elevation of the original wing is a single bay wide. The arms of the projecting wing additions are also a single bay wide, but cut with four windows at each level. Along the front facade, the first story of the original building is anchored by a white-glazed terra cotta string course with ridges that wraps around three elevations of the wing and provides a sill for a two-story, shaped transom window. White-glazed terra cotta surrounds the lower grouping of three, one-over-one and double-hung windows. Terra cotta panels with a centered medallion delineate the first from the second floor. At the second story, the bay also consists of a three window grouping one-over-one and double-hung. These are recessed with a semi-circular encasement of elaborate terra cotta, accentuated with a scrolled keystone that connects the window to an additional string course. The windows are composed of irregular, colored mosaic tile, an alteration from later in the building's history. A white-glazed, projecting terra cotta cornice above the second story includes a corona embellished at intervals with ten gargoyles in the shape of lion heads. Terra cotta coping extends the length of the roof along the front elevation and continues along three elevations. The cornice is not continued along the additional wings. While the center wing features white-glazed terra cotta coping, the east and main wings have none.

The west elevation along Beaumont contains at basement level eleven larger rectangular windows that interrupt the cut pink granite foundation and the lower string course at symmetrical intervals; the building originally featured nine windows until an addition in 1921 lengthened the west facade and introduced two windows on each story. The second, terra cotta string course mimics limestone and constitutes a continuous lintel for the windows at the above-ground basement level. A terra-cotta string course anchors the first story and provides a continuous sill for eleven windows along the west facade. Bays on both the first and second floor, at the north and south ends of this elevation, are surrounded by terra cotta encasements that span the height between the two floors. The terra cotta paneling repeats the work of Locust Street facade, but replaces the semi-circular terra cotta surround with a flat terra cotta head and a simplified keystone. The bay of the northernmost set includes two three-over-three windows, while the complementary southern bays are four-over-four. Between the terra cotta end bays, three-over-three windows are recessed within pilasters. These windows are symmetrically arranged, one over the other. The windows found on additional facades are also rectangular and six-over-six, and are distributed uniformly. On the eastern elevation, the windows of the upper three floors are slightly recessed within pilasters and simple rustication is evident in brick patterning between floors.

The main entryways are each tucked into two courtyards. An image from 1927 indicates that the placement of these doorways precedes the construction of the center wing. The image also reveals that the easternmost entry has been altered at a date unknown, but likely beyond the period of significance. Presently, this glass and brick entry surrounds a commercial double-door that projects toward Locust and serves as a vestibule for a second double-door. The 1927 photograph suggests that this altered arrangement was once similar to the extant western entryway. This second primary door with ribbon transom is deeply recessed within a decorated, white-glazed terra cotta surround. The entryway is bracketed by two pilasters, each with fluted projections as capitals. The surround entablature features a centered keystone, as well as two lionhead grotesques within the frieze. The entryway is capped with a broken, scrolled pediment accented with wreath ornamentation. Within the western courtyard is a concrete massing that obscures this doorway from the street.

At alley elevation, a two story, enclosed bridge projects southward and connects the Beaumont exchange with a later telecommunications facility on the block. The passageway is only visible on the alley facade and is closed-off from use in the interior.

Interior spaces of the Beaumont Telephone Exchange are open and adaptable, as was necessary for the switchboard equipment used within the building. No floorplan exists for the original structure, but the absence of load-bearing walls and the functionality of the building indicate that the exchange was conceptually always a series of open spaces across all stories. "The switchboard at which you are looking is very likely over two hundred feet in length," notes marketing material used by the Bell Telephone Company at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. "It extends along three sides of a large room." As a contemporary and up-to-date exchange, this brief description likely applies to Beaumont. The open floorplan of the original structure was repeated in subsequent additions.

In the original wing of the building, seven Doric columns are distributed on each floor, some of which have egg-and-dart patterned capitals. Less-elaborate rectangular columns exist elsewhere in the exchange. Load-bearing walls are found primarily around stairwells and two elevators, with only a few subdivisions by non-bearing walls scattered elsewhere in the building. These occur primarily within the first story of the center wing and on the first and second stories of the east wing.

A mosaic-tiled window occupies the bay at the third story across the Locust Street facade of the original building. Irregularly cut blue, green and clear glass segments are pieced together to form an image of the earth, surrounded by numbers that suggest a rotary telephone dial. This window was likely added in later years, but reinforces the historical use as a communications facility. Drop ceilings exist throughout, but like smaller alterations are not permanent.

Beaumont Telephone Exchange Building, St. Louis Missouri Locust Street Elevation (2005)
Locust Street Elevation (2005)

Beaumont Telephone Exchange Building, St. Louis Missouri Locust Street Elevation (2005)
Locust Street Elevation (2005)

Beaumont Telephone Exchange Building, St. Louis Missouri Beaumont Street Elevation (2005)
Beaumont Street Elevation (2005)

Beaumont Telephone Exchange Building, St. Louis Missouri Locust Street Elevation, East Courtyard (2005)
Locust Street Elevation, East Courtyard (2005)

Beaumont Telephone Exchange Building, St. Louis Missouri Locust Street Elevation, West Courtyard (2005)
Locust Street Elevation, West Courtyard (2005)

Beaumont Telephone Exchange Building, St. Louis Missouri Original wing (2005)
Original wing (2005)