This building has been home to factories for shoe, hat, and a glove companies

Hamilton-Brown Shoe Factory, St. Louis Missouri

Date added: January 19, 2024 Categories: Missouri Industrial

The Hamilton-Brown Shoe Company was formed in St. Louis in 1872 by J. M. Hamilton and Alanson D. Brown. Like most local shoe companies of that period, it began by distributing products from the East Coast to the St. Louis region. As the manufacturing process became more industrialized, Hamilton-Brown began to produce its own shoes in a series of progressively larger headquarters buildings. Its first separate factory was built at Locust Street and 21^st Street, just west of the downtown core, in 1888. A decade later, the company moved into its landmark headquarters building at Tucker and Washington.

The expansion of the company before the turn of the century parallels the industrial development of St. Louis in general. While the recession of the 1890s slowed growth, by the turn of the century St. Louis held a national rank of fifth or sixth in all of the following industries: dress manufacturing, furniture production, book publishing and job printing, boots and shoes, lumber products, and newspaper and periodical publishing. With one exception, no Western city ranked higher in any of these categories. (Louisville outproduced St. Louis in one category.) St. Louis was well-poised to take advantage of the growing local market, as well as the new trade territories in the southwest made accessible by the Missouri Pacific Railroad.

In the shoe industry, production for these markets was a precursor to national expansion. Census reports indicate that Missouri's shoe and boot industry rose from the nation's eighth-ranked in 1899 to second place in 1909. Hamilton-Brown's place in that expansion is indisputable: according to company publications, sales grew from $3.4 million in 1890 to $6.1 million in 1900, expanding further to over $8.4 million when this facility was constructed in 1903. While Hamilton-Brown had once been a distributor of shoes from the East Coast, by 1908 the company had opened a Boston office to distribute its own goods.

The company's association with architect Isaac Taylor may have begun when Hamilton-Brown bought a factory building which Taylor had designed for the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company in 1894. Hamilton-Brown purchased the property in 1902 and selected Taylor to design an alteration (estimated at $8,500) in the same year. Over the next fifteen years, Taylor designed all of the known St. Louis facilities of Hamilton-Brown, including numerous additions and new buildings at the Randolph Street facility and the Locust Street facility as well as new factories at 21^st and Olive and 9^th and Carroll (known as the "Sunlight" factory, 1906). Of this group, only this property and the Sunlight Factory still exist.

For the company selecting an architect to define its corporate image in 1902, Isaac Taylor was an obvious choice. Recently named Chief Architect for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Taylor was at the top of his field.

Isaac Taylor's professional career spanned almost half a century in St. Louis. The young architect had recently graduated from St. Louis University when he began work in the office of George I. Barnett in 1869. He practiced jointly with Barnett for several years in the late 1870s, then left to begin his own practice. Among his few known large commissions of the 1880s is the building often considered to be his masterpiece; the 1888 Liggett and Myers/Rice-Stix Building, commonly known as the Merchandise Mart. During this early period of his career, Barnett's classicizing influence had slipped in favor of the more contemporary Romanesque style. The Merchandise Mart, with its soaring arcades and varied materials, is one of the city's best examples of the style. Other published designs from Taylor's office during this period reveal an even more Richardsonian approach, particularly in the design for a train depot dated 1890.

The signature on this striking drawing would be found on many others from Isaac Taylor's office over the next three decades. Oscar Enders, a Milwaukee native who developed his extraordinary drafting talents as a member of the Chicago Architectural Sketch Club, joined Taylor's office by 1890 to become his draftsman, designer, and eventually his heir. It is possible that the Richardsonian bent of some of Taylor's work could be attributed to Enders, who used the style in some of his own published sketches.

By the early 1890s, Taylor's practice was a busy one, and sources agree that Enders' place in the firm was much more than that of draftsman. Among Taylor's work of the 1890s, Enders has been credited with the design for the Planters Hotel (1894, demolished) and the Board of Education Building (1891). Both buildings demonstrate the taming of the Romanesque, as multi-story arcades were classicized, and classical and Renaissance elements became common. The use of arcades as a primary organizing element would become one of the most obvious trademarks of Taylor's practice.

By the time Taylor's appointment as Chief Architect of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was announced in 1901, his firm had already designed approximately 20 buildings in St. Louis' Central Business District. Ten of his 1888-1901 buildings are extant in downtown St. Louis.

Examination of Taylor's multi-story commercial work from this period reveals a set of relatively consistent organizing principles. Most notably, Taylor is known for the use of round-arched multi-story arcades as the primary vertical element. The arcaded organization is used in most of his extant tall buildings before 1903, across a variety of styles. It appears equally at home in the enormous Romanesque Liggett & Myers/Rice-Stix Building and the small, classically inspired Hadley-Dean Glass Company Building (1903). The Italian Renaissance is the inspiration for the 1007 Washington Building (1899), where pairs of windows separated by a beaded mullion culminate in a pair of round-arched windows at the top story; each vertical pair of arcades is installed within a round-arched frame centered by a contrasting brick roundel in the spandrel area.

Only a few of Taylor's buildings of this period and type depart from the arcaded formula. The first known example which features trabeated bays is the Silk Exchange, 1901 (demolished after fire, 1995). The eight-story building shares many design elements with the Hamilton-Brown Factory, particularly at the nine-bay Tucker Boulevard elevation. Here, recessed bays are set between six-story piers, their simple capitals embellished by small adjacent circles running across the top. Most of the references to classical architecture are in simple geometric details: dentils, square and octagonal piers, rusticated brick courses, and simple round motifs in terra cotta courses at the third and eighth stories. The building is so spare and simple that the Renaissance-inspired window surrounds built into the third story appear somewhat misplaced.

If the Silk Exchange marked a "distinct departure," the Hamilton-Brown factory two years later was a step even farther away from historical design. Where the Silk Exchange used pilaster-like piers with capitals, the Hamilton-Brown factory let the piers flow into the horizontal space above the five-story body of the building. Instead of classical keystones, the designer suggested keystones with subtle corbeling of the brick. The first-story windows are separated by cast iron piers with geometric, capitals. Instead of ornamental motifs in spandrel panels, inset brick rectangles are used. The only real classical detailing is the use of a dentil course between stories and a dentil-modillion-cavetto cap at the top.

The stark simplicity of the Hamilton-Brown Building is highlighted by comparison with another Taylor commission of the same year: the Hadley-Dean Glass Company Building. Both have similar proportions and materials, but the Hadley-Dean Building uses the typical arcade formula, with classical capitals and keystones instead of the stylized abstract brickwork of the Hamilton-Brown.

If the design was unusual for Taylor's office, it should be remembered that the building was, after all, still a factory. In St. Louis, high-style factory buildings were mostly located on or near Washington Avenue, where the image of a company was often projected by the grandeur of its corporate facilities. Off Washington, the designs tended to be simpler. The factory at 2031 Olive belongs to a group of warehouses and factories downtown that received a simpler, but still dignified treatment (likely due to the stature of the client and/or the downtown location). Many examples are found in the Cupples Station complex, which is characterized by very fine but generally quite simple buildings. A more directly comparable example is the Winkelmeyer Building, 1902. Built as a warehouse, architect O. J. Wilhelmi's trabeated design is restrained in its use of historical detail. Simple brick panels separate and frame various elements, and a crown of modillions caps the composition.

Compared to the Winkelmeyer Building, the Hamilton-Brown factory shows more creativity in its detailing. The corbeled keystone detail at the top of the shaft is particularly telling of the talent of Oscar Enders, who was said to be in charge of Taylor's office while Taylor was working on the Fair. One of Enders' obituaries mentions his interest in the Vienna Secession; this building is one of the few places in the work he did under Taylor where he may have had the opportunity to experiment with abstract design. The Hamilton-Brown Factory Building stands out among the work of Isaac Taylor's office as one of the least tied to historical precedent.

By 1903, Hamilton-Brown claimed to be the largest manufacturer of shoes and boots in the world. Although it would be dislodged from the top ranking in 1911 by the merger of the Peters Shoe Company and Roberts, Johnson and Rand to form the International Shoe Company, Hamilton-Brown continued as a major presence for several decades.

As the industry leader, the new International Shoe Company boosted the level of competition among shoe companies by establishing factories outside of the city, where labor costs were less. Its predecessor Roberts, Johnson & Rand began major relocations in 1906, and sped up the pace of rural industrialization after World War I. Hamilton-Brown was one of many companies which copied this policy to stay competitive. While the company continued to expand its St. Louis facilities through the 1910s (a one-story warehouse by Isaac Taylor was issued a permit in 1917 just months before the architect's death), by the end of the 1920s the majority of its factories were outside of St. Louis. A 1928 advertisement proclaimed "12 factories to serve you," but the City Directory of the same year listed only six in St. Louis. The following year, only four were listed.

The decentralization of the shoe industry affected 2031 Olive earlier than the other Hamilton-Brown plants. Its last Red-Blue book listing as a shoe factory was in 1924, but a photo view of Hamilton-Brown facilities from 1923 shows that the factory's main product during the preceding years (the Security School Shoe line) was already being manufactured in East St. Louis, Illinois. During the later years of the 1920s, the building was rented by the Excelsior Paper Bag Company and then the Emerson Electric Company. By 1929 the City Directory listed the building as vacant.

After the onset of the Depression, Hamilton-Brown entered a steady decline. The company underwent two major re-organizations in the 1930s but continued to operate at a loss.

A syndicate of 31 investors purchased a majority share of the stock (the shares of A. D. Brown, which had been held by trustees since his death in 1914) in 1938, prompting a judge to rescind his receivership order. The corporate headquarters were moved from the A. D. Brown Building (which the company had never owned) into the vacant 2031 Olive in late 1938 or early 1939. Soon after, members of the syndicate discovered that the company was in much worse financial shape than they had believed. After declaring bankruptcy in 1939, the company presented a reorganization plan which the courts considered "unworthy of consideration."

The company's St. Louis factories were to be sold, but few bids were received for the five remaining properties. The 2031 Olive location was rented to the WPA for a time, and finally sold in 1942. The new owner, Rothschild Brothers Hat Company, established a factory in the building, shared with the Stetson Glove Company. The one-story addition to the east was added in 1955.

The immediate neighborhood was once a densely built industrial and commercial district, which included a larger Hamilton-Brown factory across the alley to the north. The two buildings were once connected by bridges over the alley (although it is not known if this was an original feature). Most of the historic buildings have been removed due to disrepair, highway construction, urban renewal, and other factors. Many of those that remain, such as the Swift Printing Company just across 21^st Street to the north, have been restored and returned to productive use. It is the intention of the new owners to return the Hamilton-Brown Shoe Factory to use, not as a factory, but as an office building.

Building Description

The Hamilton-Brown Shoe Factory is a seven-story red brick building located at the northeast corner of Olive Street and 21^st Street just west of downtown St. Louis, Missouri. Primary elevations front three bays on Olive and seven bays on 21^st. These elevations are divided into a one-story base with cast iron piers, a five-story body, and a single-story crown. The rear elevation features blocked windows at all levels. Above a one-story addition to the east, the wall has been painted white and features both infilled and open windows. The interiors are open and largely unfinished. The building is in good condition and the primary elevations show relatively little alteration. The addition to the east is the most notable alteration; others include blocked windows on the secondary elevations and some replacement windows on the primary elevations.

Rhythms for the seven-story red brick building are defined by three bays at the Olive Street (south) elevation and seven at the 21^st Street (west) elevation. At the ground level, bays are defined by cast iron piers with simple abstract capitals. Ground floor windows are boarded.

The shaft of the building is separated from the base by a course of rose terra cotta with dentils. The five-story brick body is articulated with brick piers following the bays established at the ground level. The piers separate triple sets of one-over-one sash windows. At the south elevation and the southern bay of the west elevation, these are replacement windows. Smaller than the originals, the replacement windows are topped by a strip of black infill material. The original windows are intact in the northern six bays on the west side.

Between stories, simple recessed brick spandrels are capped by terra cotta moldings which serve as sills for the windows at the next story. Above the sixth-story windows, raised brickwork suggests keystones that drop down from two layers of corbeled courses above.

The top story is separated by another terra cotta course which serves as a sill for separated pairs of wide one-over-one sash windows at each bay. The brick surface between bays is broken by centered recessed panels. The cornice repeats the same rose terra cotta found between the vertical divisions of the building, using larger dentils, modillions, and a cavetto crown.

Two black metal fire escapes, believed to be non-original, run down the full height of the west elevation. The north bay on this elevation also has a door and infill around it.

At the east elevation, a single-story addition runs along Olive Street. Above the first floor, this elevation is plainly articulated. Wide segmental arched windows have been bricked in at the front half of the building, leaving this area blind except for two vent openings at the fifth and sixth stories and one glass block window at the fifth. At the rear, starting at the fourth floor, two-over-two windows appear to be historic. An elevator tower projects at the rear of the building. Failing white paint leaves this elevation with a mottled appearance.

The north elevation has three bays of wide windows filled with concrete block; an extra bay at the east side for the stairs has its narrower windows filled in with plywood. This side once had two bridges located at the third and sixth floor, connecting the factory to another Hamilton-Brown factory across the alley to the north. These are shown on non-historic maps dating from before the demolition of the second building. There is no longer any obvious visual evidence that they existed, and it is not known if they were original to the building.

The single-story addition to the east is approximately twice as wide as the original building. Constructed in 1955, the addition has a primary entrance at the west end of the south elevation. This elevation is divided into four unequal bays. The entrance bay has two rectangular windows. It is separated by a blank space from the three bays to the east, each of which place four rectangular windows within a setback brick panel. The rest of the front elevation is faced with concrete; the east and rear elevations are of red brick. The dominant feature of the east elevation is an auto ramp, built into the east wall, which leads from the alley to the parking level at the second story. The rear elevation is also brick and has boarded windows over a concrete foundation.

Although the exterior shows three bays along Olive Street, the interior actually has two structural bays east-west. North to south, the seven structural bays are expressed on the exterior. A passenger elevator has been added at the southeast corner of the building (to be removed); an older elevator is located at the northeast corner, its shaft open to the stairwell immediately south (but separated by fencing).

On the first floor, six concrete columns with modified Doric-style capitals bisect the building north-south. The unusual capitals have squarish tabs projecting to each side and an overlapped circle motif adorning the abacus. Some of the capitals are missing parts. The floor is wood board diagonal subflooring at the next story constitutes the ceiling. Electric, plumbing and HVAC systems run close to the ceiling. Boarded storefront windows are separated by structural brick piers.

The first floor has two openings to the addition. At the south end of the east wall, a door opens into a common foyer. In the stairwell at this level, an added doorway opens onto a steep ramp into a connecting hall. An additional door at the south end of the second story opens onto a rooftop parking area on the addition.

Above the first story, square wood posts are used instead of concrete columns. The largest, on the second floor, are fifteen inches square; the posts decrease in size at the upper floors. Some of the posts and walls are painted, and some of the floors have carpet and other non-original materials over them. There is some evidence of former openings through the floors in various locations, but any factory equipment installed here has been removed. Some water damage is evident at the top story.

The basement is generally open except for a separate room in the very northwest corner separated by thick brick walls with a segmental arched opening. The basement walls extend out under the sidewalk approximately six feet to both the south and west. The concrete floor does not appear to be original.

The addition is divided by non-structural walls into a service and utility area off a corridor at the western end of the building, and an open office area lined by offices at the eastern end. The area under the parking ramp will be used as a kitchen/multi-purpose area, with storage at the northern end of the space as the ceiling height decreases.