What If the TNT Plant Had Never Been Built?
Trends in Property Transactions Before 1940
by Bob Brail
One of the saddest aspects of the construction of the TNT plant in Weldon Spring in 1940-1941 is the fact that some of the farms purchased by the War Department had been in the same family for three or four generations. Perhaps if the TNT plant had not been constructed, those families would still be farming their ancestors' lands. So what if that plant had not been constructed? What would the TNT area be like today? A thorough look at real estate transactions in the TNT area in the 1930's shows that major changes in property ownership had occurred. Farm land was already changing hands as wealthy St. Louisans, and some not so wealthy, were buying properties for investment opportunities, primary residences, and weekend homes.
Until 1937 the only way for drivers from St. Louis to reach southern St. Charles County was by driving over the bridge in St. Charles and then following the Marthasville Road several more miles to the southwest. What changed that was Proposition 3, a measure passed by Missourians in the November, 1928, general election. That measure provided $75,000,000 to repair roads and bridges and to construct new ones. Part of the proposition specified that the funds would be used “to construct . . . state highways and bridges, and to widen or otherwise improve existing state highways and bridges in the congested traffic areas adjacent to the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City.” From this funding came financing for “Traffic Relief Highway No. 40” and the Daniel Boone Bridge. The $1.2 million bridge opened Saturday, June 26, 1937, with an all-day celebration including noon-to-midnight speakers, a flyover of National Guard planes, dancing, bands, barbecues, and singers. Governor Lloyd Stark was present.
Wealthy St. Louisans, however, had taken an interest in real estate in what became the TNT area several years before the Daniel Boone Bridge opened. In the last weeks of July, 1929, for example, Birch O. Mahaffey had purchased several parcels totalling over five hundred acres of land adjacent to the Missouri River, including nearly all the bluffs between Weldon Spring and the train station at Lower Hamburg. It was Mahaffey's intent to develop the land as large estates for wealthy St. Louisans. Mahaffey's purchases were completed only months after the general election in November, 1928, when Missourians voted to pass Proposition 3. Clearly Mahaffey was looking to the future, counting on the inevitably of a bridge linking St. Louis County with the southern part of St. Charles County.
Birch Mahaffey was one of a small number of wealthy St. Louisans who had formed a group that “undertook to locate the most desirable country residence areas accessible to St. Louis.” This group chose the Missouri River bluffs in southern St. Charles County, because the area “met the requirements off accessibility to the city, with privacy of surroundings, scenery, including water areas, and without objectionable features in view.” Also the “summer breeze from the south [came] across the meximum amount of water surface . . . to gain the cooling effect.” This group included Mahaffey, who had been the president of the McBride Oil Company. In the 1940 census he described himself as an “Estates manager,” no doubt in reference to the TNT area land he hoped to develop. Mahaffey, recently widowed, lived with his two daughters and three full-time maids, in St. Louis. Another member of this group was Kenneth Bitting, an investor banker who lived with his wife Esther in LaDue, with their cook, nurse, and maid. Bitting bought several area farms. Nancy Blair Van Cleave, who lived with her lawyer-husband James in St. Louis, was “an early purchaser” in the group. Edward K. Love, a fourth member of the group, was an executive in a mortgage company, who lived with his wife Elizabeth in LaDue. By the fall of 1940, these four families would own approximately 1,150 acres along the Missouri River bluffs in what became the TNT area. The vast majority of this land was purchased before the bridge opening in 1937.
(Median house value in the U. S. in 1940 was about $3,000. Median annual wage for a male in 1940 was about $950. The annual salaries given in this article were taken from the 1940 federal census; the highest salary figure the census used was “$5,000+.”)
Another part of the TNT area that attracted residents from St. Louis was the properties that lined the new Highway 40 west of the new bridge. These buyers, because they bought smaller tracts, do not seem to have been interested in investment, as much as in establishing a new home. In fact, some of these individuals had recently moved to what became the TNT area. W. Bryan and Audra Coffman had purchased forty-seven acres by the time the new bridge opened. Bryan, an automobile factory salesman, and his wife were living in their new home on that property in 1940. Louis Willerding had been a clothing salesman at Famous Barr in St. Louis, but had recently moved with his wife Ella to a new home on Highway 40. Other buyers in this part of the TNT area were Robert and Ruth Glenn of LaDue, Harry and Edith Ames of Webster Groves, and Vincent Glenn, whose primary residence was Chicago.
St. Louis residents were also willing to drive further distances after crossing the new bridge in order to find weekend homes or even new primary residences. Several newcomers from St. Louis bought property in the village of Hamburg. Tom and Roxanne Rogers, had moved to Hamburg from St. Louis, where Tom Rogers was an executive with the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. The Rogerses had built two homes on their Hamburg property, including one for their full-time caretakers. Lawyer George Willson and his wife Jean from St. Louis bought a second home in Hamburg. Several other St. Louisans who were less affluent also bought land in or near Hamburg.
Hikers along the Lost Valley Trail, formerly called Muschany Hollow Road, are very familiar with the standing chimney that stands just off the trail. This chimney is all that is left of the weekend retreat of O. P. and Kate Hampton of University City; Hampton was the clothing department manager of the Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney Department Store in St. Louis. Other wealthy St. Louisans bought property along this road for second homes. One real estate developer from St. Louis, Edward Gocke, made his first purchase on Muschany Hollow Road five years before the new bridge opened. Another St. Louisan, William Kaut, chose to build a luxurious home on this road, after the new bridge opened, Kaut, the general manager of the Brown Shoe Company, commuted to St. Louis. He and his wife Grace also built a home for their property caretakers.
The area north and west of the village of Howell was the other part of the future TNT area that saw several tracts purchased by St. Louisans, some very wealthy and some not so wealthy. Sam Watson, Jr., was an attorney for the city of St. Louis. Watson would become the attorney representing several of the TNT area landowners in their court cases again the War Department when the War Department reneged on signed contracts and condemned the landowners' properties in 1941. On May 23, 1940, just a few months before the plans to build the TNT factory were announced, three families from St. Louis, the Margiottas, Russes, and Rallos, pooled their resources and purchased five acres for their “country retreat.”
What if the TNT factor at Weldon Spring had never been built? It seems possible that some fifth or even sixth generations might now be farming on the land of their ancestors. What is not open to conjecture, though, is the significant impact of the Daniel Boone Bridge opening in 1937, on property ownership in southern St. Charles County. By the time the construction of the TNT factory was announced in October of 1940, nearly 2,000 acres, about 12% of the TNT area, had been purchased by individuals whose primary residence was in St. Louis, or who had only recently moved to what became the TNT area.
Sources: “Buys Another Farm Near the Daniel Boone Bridge in This County,” St. Charles Daily Cosmos-Monitor, January 10, 1938; “Elaborate Plans Made for Bridge Dedication Saturday,” St. Charles Daily Cosmos-Monitor, June 22, 1937; Federal Population Censuses; “Maps and Properties” (thetntstory.blogspot.com); Muschany v. U.S. : Andrews v. U. S.; U. S. Supreme Court Transcript of Record with Supporting Pleadings, The Making of Modern Law: U. S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978; “The Swimming Pool in the Woods” by Bob Brail (justawalkdowntheroad.blogspot.com); “TNT Plant Wrecks Plans for Estates,” unknown newspaper, 1940.