2100 Locust Street

History of the Schlafly Tap Room 

The two adjoining buildings that house our location in downtown St. Louis were completed in 1902 and 1904 and had been built with super-heavy steel reinforced beams to house the printing presses that would occupy the space for the next 65 years.

The designer was Samuel L. Scherer, a self-educated architect. Scherer was a student of Ruskin, Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement in England. He was known to say that “architecture is the most useful of the fine arts and the finest of the useful arts.” He later became the first Director of the St. Louis Art Museum.

After the Swift Printing Company moved out to St. Louis County in 1969, the building sat vacant, deteriorating for 22 years.

It almost met its maker in 1976, when the fire storm of 1976 engulfed all four corners of Locust and 21st Streets. The conflagration destroyed the two enormous buildings on the east side of 21st Street, one of which flattened a hook and ladder fire truck when it fell. The North Building suffered serious damage, and the heat damage is still visible on the beams in the Club Room in the South Building.

The following years found the buildings in such disrepair that the makers of the movie Escape From New York felt that filming Kurt Russell walking past 2100 Locust Street would give moviegoers the impression that Snake Pliskin really was walking in a post-apocalyptic Manhattan.

 

The Schlafly Tap Room makes its film debut in 1981’s Eascape From New York.