International Fur Exchange Building, St. Louis Missouri

Date added: January 18, 2024 Categories:

The International Fur Exchange Building is the preeminent building in St. Louis associated with the city's prominence as an international center of fur trade. During this period the Fouke Fur Co. of St. Louis (and its corporate predecessors) held an exclusive contract with the United States Government for the processing and sale of all sealskins and foxskins taken from Government herds on the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea. In addition, from 1920-1925 and again from 1934-1956, federally sanctioned auctions of fur seal pelts were exclusively held in the property. The Fouke Co. hosted periodic public auctions in the Fur Exchange Building where 80 percent of the world's fur-seal pelts were sold to domestic and foreign buyers, bringing in sizable profits to the U.S. Treasury. Fouke's sale of U.S. Government furs transformed a neglected American resource into a valuable commodity, and enhanced the city's prestige as a leading fur market.

In 1919, when plans were underway for the construction of the International Fur Exchange Building, an advertisement in the St. Louis Post Dispatch reminded St. Louisans of the city's rich heritage as a fur center. Parallels drawn between past and current events highlighted the roles played by Pierre Laclede, an 18th-century New Orleans trader who founded St. Louis in 1764 as a fur trading post, and Philip B. Fouke (1872-1951), a modern-day St. Louis fur merchant from New Orleans who helped recapture St. Louis' primacy in the fur trade, and spearheaded the new Fur Exchange project.

The site of Laclede's trading post on the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence of the Missouri River offered advantageous waterways that connected fur trapping grounds to warehouses on St. Louis's riverfront. The town grew to be a major collecting and distributing point for western furs which were shipped to other markets for sale. In the decades following the Louisiana Purchase, St. Louis-based fur companies, such as John Jacob Astor's local branch of the American Fur Co., competed for dominance in the rich trapping grounds of the upper Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains. The fur trade was highly profitable not only to those involved in furs, but it also stimulated the city's economy through the heavy sales of trapper supplies and trade goods.

By the mid-19^th century, however, the fur trade was in decline due to the diminishing supply of good furs and the turn of fashion trends from beaver fur to silk (used in the manufacture of hats), among other factors. The era of the big fur houses had passed by the end of the Civil War, although St. Louis continued to receive pelts in reduced volume. In the 1880s, a revival of interest in the fur trade appeared when several new commission firms opened. These companies included the two future incorporators of the International Fur Exchange: Funsten Bros. (1881) where Philip B. Fouke began as an office boy in 1886, and the F.C. Taylor Co., established earlier in 1870. For some years, the new commission houses dealt primarily in hides and wool; furs figured only as a minor sideline.

Gradually the fur trade increased. St. Louis Merchants' Exchange annual statements show an ascendancy in St. Louis fur receipts from 26,115 bundles in 1881, to 125,526 bundles a decade later in 1891. This upward trend continued throughout the 1890s and the following decade, helped substantially by shipments from new fur territories in Canada, Alaska, and the far northwestern states. In addition, St. Louis handled a growing volume of regional furs (mink, skunk, raccoon, and opossum) which exceeded that received in any other market. The estimated value of furs received in St. Louis totaled $9 million during the 1905-06 season, and $12 million in the 1912-13 season. The city securely held its position (claimed as early as 1896) as the leading market for North American raw furs. Various sources estimated that around 1910, 60 to 70 percent of all furs trapped in North America were received in St. Louis and sold through daily "floor sales" of sealed bids. Funsten Bros., led by company president Philip B. Fouke, claimed, by 1911, to be the largest fur-receiving house in the world, with annual sales running into the millions. St. Louis' flourishing commerce in pelts prompted the founding of several more new companies in the second decade of the 20^th century.

Fashion influenced the demand for furs again in the early 20^th century. The fur coat, as we know it today (with the fur covering as an outside shell), displaced the popularity of the 19th-century-style coat on which fur was used principally as an inside lining or as trim. Sealskin became one of the desirable furs for women's coats although the world's largest herd of sealskins, located on the Alaskan Pribilof Islands, was threatened with near extinction. From 1870 to 1910, the United States Government leased Pribilof sealing rights to private American companies that shipped the raw skins directly to London for dressing, dyeing, and auction. The leasing system proved financially unprofitable to Government interests and, at the same time, contributed to the depletion of the herd from an estimated two million animals in 1870 to 132,279 in 1910.

The Fur Seal Act of 1910 terminated the leasing arrangement and placed Pribilof sealing under sole Federal jurisdiction in the Department of Commerce Bureau of Fisheries. Further conservation measures were taken to restore the herd through an international treaty in 1911 which placed a moratorium on pelagic sealing. The North Pacific Fur Seal Convention, signed by the United States, Great Britain (representing Canada), Japan, and Russia, thus abolished sealing on the open sea for fifteen years (with later renewals through 1984). Japan and Canada each received 15 percent of the United States' seal take in exchange for relinquishing rights to harvest seals on their annual migration southward from Pribilof summer breeding grounds. Congress provided additional protection to the herd in 1912 by declaring a five-year moratorium on the Islands themselves (except seals needed for Aleut food).

Federal control of Pribilof seals subsequently opened the door for policy changes in the marketing and processing of the sealskins. In 1910, Philip B. Fouke, President of Funsten Bros. (St. Louis) began petitioning officials in the Department of Commerce (then headed by Secretary Charles Nagel of St. Louis) to sell the skins in St. Louis instead of London. Since the United States consumed the large majority of its own sealskins, Fouke argued it was an economic disadvantage to auction and process them in London, only to ship them back where an import duty was added. Fouke's initiative finally met with success in 1913 when the Government consigned skins recovered from the Aleut allotment. On December 16^th, 1913, he auctioned 1,898 sealskins along with more than 400 Government fox pelts. This first offering of Government furs in the United States drew an international crowd of more than 200 buyers, and added significant prestige to St. Louis' reputation as a primary fur market. The sale was conducted in Funsten's new Exchange Building near Second and Elm Streets in the heart of the riverfront fur district. (Some thirty years later, all of the buildings in this area were cleared for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial and the Gateway Arch.)

Satisfied with sale results, which brought higher prices than London auctions, the U.S. Government, in 1915, contracted with Funsten Bros. (after 1921, Fouke Fur Co.) to continue sales of Pribilof skins. The timing was propitious as the onset of World War I cut off shipping routes from Europe. The contract stated the Government's intention to establish in St. Louis, "a permanent sealskin and foxskin market, and also to establish in the United States the industry of dyeing and dressing such skins." An interesting amendment in 1917 required the St. Louis firm to advertise and promote the fur, "with the view of informing the public ... and of inducing a more general use of sealskins than prevails at the present time." Funsten ads began appearing regularly in fashion and trade journals.

With a substantial government contract in hand, and bright prospects for sales after lifting the moratorium, Funsten Bros. consolidated with the other leading fur house in St. Louis, the F. C. Taylor Co., to form the International Fur Exchange. The new company was incorporated in 1916 with a capital stock of $8 million. Philip B. Fouke, president of Funsten Bros., was the largest shareholder. In addition to the sealskin trade, the International Fur Exchange reaped auction profits from millions of other pelts which flooded American markets after WW I hostilities closed European markets. Business (which amounted to sales of some $32 million in 1919) was conducted in several buildings once located along the St. Louis riverfront, while skin processing took place in a plant at 1328 S. Kingshighway (altered but still standing).

Despite the lean years of the sealing moratorium, a report issued by the Commissioner of Fisheries in 1922 indicated a positive upward trend in the Pribilof fur industry during the period 1910-1921 when sealing was under the management of the Department of Commerce. According to that report, a net increase in price per skin of over 600 percent was realized for the U.S. Treasury (from an average of $4.10 per skin under the pre-1910 leasing system, to an average of $31.20 per skin). Conservation policies had increased the seal population by over 370 percent to a stock of 581,453 animals by 1921, with 41,091 skins on hand. Moreover, foxskins, which had produced no Government revenue under the leasing arrangement, now had netted the Government $403,759.34 in eleven years.

Fur Exchange Building

In 1919, on the heels of two world record-breaking fur auctions in St. Louis, construction began on a new seven-story commercial warehouse building designed to house the display rooms and auction room of the International Fur Exchange. Completed in 1920 on a prominent downtown site just four blocks west of the Mississippi River, the building cost an estimated $750,000. George W. Hellmuth, a notable St. Louis architect, designed the Exchange. It boasted, "the world's largest raw fur exchange," with "unexcelled lighting facilities" for examining goods, as well as offering buyers the convenience of viewing pelts and bidding in the same building. Previously two buildings (demolished) were required for those activities.

Just as the building opened for use, however, the bottom fell out of the wholesale fur market, a collapse attributed to manufacturers' strikes in the East and the post-War financial depression. A failed May 1920 auction brought fur sales of only $3 million out of $38 million offered. The two-week auction in February-March 1921 drew some 500 buyers, and took in nearly $11 million in sales, but half or more of the revenue represented sales of debtor consignments, payment due the Exchange for cash advances on previous unsuccessful auctions. Among the solvent consignors, the U.S. Government sold over 10,000 sealskins for $355,689, together with $80,699 worth of foxskins, albeit at prices reported to be 45 percent lower than obtained in 1920.

In 1921, the heavily indebted International Fur Exchange was forced to dissolve. The principals reorganized by consolidation with a worldwide conglomerate, Eitingon-Schild Fur Co. (New York), while retaining the corporate names Fouke Fur and Funsten Bros. The Government contract for skin processing and sales passed to Fouke after the company was incorporated in 1921. In large measure, business continued as usual at semiannual auctions conducted in St. Louis by Fouke Fur, which now featured sealskins as the flagship of their business. As the Pribilof herd increased (at a rate of about 7 to 8 percent annually), so in general did the number of sealskins offered at auction. During the fiscal years 1923 through 1929, an average of 25,000 sealskins annually grossed close to $800,000; foxskin sales, always a minor adjunct to the sealskin industry, brought an additional $53,000 yearly. In the 1920s, Fouke Fur's sealskin processing operation began developing new dye colors to expand the market beyond the demand for the standard black. At the autumn 1924 auction, Fouke offered a new color for the first time, skins dyed "Chataigne D'or" (golden chestnut), for which buyers from New York, London, and Paris bid higher than the larger group of black skins.

While sales of the U.S. Government furs remained stable, shipments of pelts from other animals dropped off after European markets reopened in the post-World War I era. The diminished volume of pelts required less space for display and auction. Apparently for that reason, in 1925 Fouke Fur Co. auctions were removed from the seven-story International Fur Exchange Building at Fourth and Market to a much smaller, three-story building on the riverfront (demolished). The onset of the Great Depression brought a further setback to the company. The reduced demand for fur coats caused pelts to plunge from an average of $34 per skin in the latter 1920s to average lows of $13 to $20 per skin in the early 1930s. During an interim period of 1925-1933, the Fourth and Market building remained largely vacant, perhaps used for storage. The Fur Exchange Building again became economically feasible for auctions in 1934 after a lease secured with the Caradine Hat Co. (manufacturers of harvest hats and men's straw hats) guaranteed yearly revenue. Fur auctions resumed at the International Fur Exchange in the fall of 1934 when the building opened for pre-auction viewing of pelts a week or so before the day of the October 15^th sale. Biannual preview periods and auctions continued there uninterrupted through fiscal year 1956.

Fouke kicked off the fall 1934 reopening auction with the introduction of another new sealskin color, "Safari Brown," which proved extremely popular, as would "Matara Brown." (first offered in 1939). The company vigorously promoted Government sealskins through full-page ads in leading fashion magazines, together with marketing in trade journals. The mid-to-late 1930s marked significant growth years for the Pribilof fur industry. The Bureau of Fisheries reported that the 1933 take of 54,550 sealskins was the largest of any year since 1889, only to be topped by the 1935 harvest of 57,296. St. Louis auctions of that period annually sold about 45,000 sealskins which grossed around $1 million or more for the Government; foxskins yearly averaged about $23,000.

The 1940s were banner years in the volume of skins harvested and sold, and also in auction profits. An all-time high for a single auction of U.S. Government fur skins was set in September 1941 when 29,688 sealskins (along with a few foxskins) sold for $1,370,005 (an average of $46 per skin). The Department of Interior Fish and Wildlife Service reported little disturbance during the years of World War II, with sealing interrupted only in 1942. The take of 117,164 seals the following year (assisted by a large group of Fouke men from St. Louis) was the largest since 1874. In the mid-1940s, St. Louis sealskin auctions recorded the largest attendance ever assembled, attracting 250 to 300 foreign and domestic buyers at each sale (compared to as few as 25 to 60 bidders during the Depression). After price controls were lifted, Government annual gross revenues soared to $3 to $4 million in the last four years of the decade. By 1948, the Pribilof seal herd had been restored to 3,837,131 animals, capable of supplying an annual average of more than 50,000 skins for auction. Fouke's successful marketing of U.S. sealskins led to shipments from other clients. In 1943, he auctioned for the first time 1,000 sealskins from the Cape of Good Hope (sold for the Union of South Africa). Five years later, foreign shipments showed a marked increase which was sustained in the following decade.

In 1948, ownership of the International Fur Exchange Building passed from fur company interests to the Caradine Hat Co. (lessees since 1934). Fouke auctions continued to be held in the building until the fall of 1956 when the company began hosting fur sales at its processing plant at 1328 N. Kingshighway. Most likely, the move was related to Caradine's plans to renovate and enlarge the Exchange. In 1962, the Fouke Fur Co. moved all of its operations from St. Louis to Greenville, South Carolina; they continued to process and sell sealskins there until the company was dissolved in the mid-1980s.

When the Fouke Co. left the Fur Exchange Building in 1956, the sealskin market remained strong, annually grossing more than $4.5 million. However, the era of St. Louis' primacy as a center of fur trade had passed. Only five companies still traded in fur in 1956; just two remained in 1961. Moreover, in time, urban renewal projects cleared the city of almost all properties associated with its long history as a center of fur commerce. Only one building, the International Fur Exchange, the largest and most prestigious fur trade building ever constructed in St. Louis, remains close to the site of the historic riverfront fur district. Two other fur-related buildings survive: the Fouke processing plant at 1328 N. Kingshighway, and a building at 2204 N. Broadway which the B. Harris Wool & Fur Co. occupied for about ten years after relocating from the riverfront in 1939.

In May 1957, the Caradine Hat Co. announced construction would begin on a $2,500,000, ten-story addition to the 1920 International Fur Exchange Building. According to Caradine Co. officials, the addition project was made possible by the agreement of Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. to lease 150,000 square feet of the total 250,000 square feet of the combined buildings. The telephone company's accounting operations would occupy five full floors of the expanded facility. The new construction was hailed as the first new major office space built in downtown St. Louis in more than 25 years, and viewed as an important step in the revitalization and rebuilding of the riverfront. Completed in 1959, the simple, streamlined addition was designed to integrate both visually and physically with the 1920 building by observing spandrel lines established in the original building. The addition obscured only the south (side) elevation.

Building Description

The International Fur Exchange Building is a seven-story brick commercial-style building of brick-faced reinforced concrete with a flat roof. The brick, in a red and brown mix, is highlighted by the use of off-white terra cotta. A first floor of rusticated brick provides a strong visual base for the building. Brick piers divide floors two through six vertically, while brick spandrels provide horizontal continuity. The center of the seventh floor houses the high-ceilinged auction room and features a clerestory to provide light for viewing pelts; to accommodate the great height of these windows, the auction room rises above the rest of the seventh floor. Accentuated by the extensive use of terra cotta, the prominence of the auction room is further emphasized by a terra cotta frieze inscribed "THE INTERNATIONAL FUR EXCHANGE" in blue letters on each side. A 1958 10-story addition on the south side of the building matches spandrels with the older portion; it was built to fully integrate with the older section. While the addition does obscure the southern elevation of the building, because the main facade and northern elevation of the building are still exposed, the 1958 construction does not destroy the original fabric of the design of the International Fur Exchange nor diminish its historical associations.

Located on a prominent corner in downtown St. Louis across from the Old Courthouse, the International Fur Exchange is built right up to the sidewalk on the north and west (primary) elevations and adjoins an office building on the east and the vacant American Zinc Building on the south. The grade slopes down to the Mississippi River to the east, exposing much more of the foundation at the east than on the west. In 1997, then-owners began demolition on the International Fur Exchange Building; halted before autumn, the demolition was for the most part limited to the removal of internal systems and salvageable materials inside the building. However, some exterior damage was done, including the removal of the two easternmost bays of the seventh floor's north and east elevations; removal of brick spandrels of the southernmost original bays of floors two through five, west elevation, and spandrels in the northernmost bay of the addition, floors six through ten; and the removal of some terra cotta ornament including the entrance surrounds on the west elevation and most of the lettered frieze on the north. It should be noted that much of the removed terra-cotta was salvaged and remains in St. Louis; the present owners intend to restore much of it, as well as repair damaged brickwork. A demolition fence currently blocks passersby from approaching the north and west elevations.

The International Fur Exchange Building was begun in 1919 and completed in 1920. Designed by noted St. Louis architect George W. Hellmuth, the original building was approximately 125 x 150'. The reinforced concrete, brick-sheathed building anchored the southeast corner of Market and Fourth Streets in the heart of downtown St. Louis. Since overshadowed by the adjoining office tower on the east and the glass Marriott Pavilion across the street to the west, the International Fur Exchange provided a nicely scaled complement to the Old Courthouse diagonally across the street, as well as to other low-rise buildings in the vicinity. Interior spaces are regularly divided, by concrete mushroom capitals in the old part of the building and squared ones in the addition.

Red and brown brick laid in rusticated courses distinguish the ground floor of the building; rectangular windows pierce the wall at regular intervals. Originally fitted with double-hung six-over-six windows, these are all boarded or empty now. Two entrances, located in the west elevation, featured tall terra cotta surrounds. These have both been removed. Above the base, terra cotta string courses band the building; between them a panel of brick laid in a brick-and-one-half variant of the basketweave pattern was employed.

The primary elevations are divided into bays (eight on the north side and six on the west) by brick piers laid in stretcher bond and featuring simple, squared, off-white terra cotta capitals and bases resting on the higher of the two terra cotta string courses. Terra cotta rosettes are flanked by stylized ornaments on each capital. Brick spandrels repeat the basketweave pattern used below, and soldier rows provide both sill and lintel courses for the windows between. Windows in floors two through six of the original portion of the building are tripartite, vertically divided; original windows were of the industrial, multipane type.

The top story of the International Fur Exchange Building housed, among other things, the fur auction room. It is this room that primarily defines the decorative aspect of the exterior of the building because it was essentially two stories in height, having a tall clerestory to provide light for the inspection of furs. These four sets of windows are articulated in two parts. The lower windows had a double-hung sash and small terra cotta balconies (balustrades now removed) and concave surrounds embellished with cartouches and crenelated molding. The heads of the lower windows are encompassed by the larger, fluted terra-cotta surrounds of the enormous clerestory windows, these surrounds terminating in guttae. Paired blocks of inset terra cotta flank the bottoms of the larger windows; fluted terra cotta banding and crenelated molding highlights the upper reaches of the windows. The larger windows were originally multipaned; it is not known whether they were fixed or movable. They are now infilled with wood. Surmounting the raised block of the seventh floor is a wide terra cotta band originally inscribed on each side with the words "THE INTERNATIONAL FUR EXCHANGE" in deep blue on an off-white terra cotta background. Part of this inscription on the north elevation has been removed.

Flanking the four clerestory windows on the west elevation is one bay each on the north and south ends that does not rise to the great height of the center block. This is the remainder of the seventh story, the portion that is really only seven stories high. It reads like a typical attic story, with narrow windows between tiny brick, terra cotta-ended piers grouped in threes. Originally these were six-over-six double-hung sash; now they are vertically divided in two. More of the terra-cotta crenelated molding extends across the north elevation, returning at the corner; above, terra-cotta modillion blocks accent the terra-cotta cornice. Parts of this story have been removed as well as some of the cornice on both north and south sides.

In 1958, local architects Jamieson, Spearl, Hammond & Grollock were commissioned to design a ten-story addition to the International Fur Exchange Building. The addition was done in a modern commercial style using concrete spandrels at the same intervals as those of the original building; no piers were employed, instead allowing a long sweep of glass. The windows are tripartite, with the top, fixed glass an opaque light jade-green color. The two lower panes open inward, top-down. The roof is flat and the first floor has round columns that allow support while providing a covered area in front of the building. The addition was intentionally designed to mesh with the old building; the floors all match up, square-capital concrete pillars are in line and equidistant to the older members. Essentially attached to the rear elevation from a downtown point of view, the addition is tucked behind the building and provides minimal visual impact. Like the older building, the addition has suffered a certain amount of demolition, primarily to a narrow strip down the north side of the top six floors.

The International Fur Exchange Building was purchased by Druco, Inc., the parent company of Drury Hotels, in late 1997, rescuing the property from demolition. Currently, Druco is planning an extensive restoration and adaptive reuse project of the building which will bring a beautiful hotel/convention center to the heart of downtown St. Louis. Plans have also been forwarded to place a small museum dealing with The Fur Trade in St. Louis on the first floor of the building. These projects will insure the future of the building, giving it additional years of productive use.