Missing Tooth on Broadway

Corner of Broadway and Sunset 04-25-2014I’ve made a dozen or more trips down Broadway since I’ve been in town without noticing it, but some cleared land at the corner of Broadway and Sunset, just down the hill from Southeast Hospital, finally gave me that “missing tooth” feeling today.

The first person I asked said they hadn’t noticed anything missing, but they normally didn’t drive that way to work. Another said, “I saw something was gone, but I can’t remember what was there.”

While I was shooting this, some workmen showed up to handle erosion control. One of them said the building that was on the corner might have been a dentist’s office at one time, and had been used, he though, for the nursing school before it moved out on William.

Google Streetview showed a fairly large brick building with 1819 on the front of it. The 1968 City Directory lists Dr. Paul G. Wolff, physician and surgeon, at that address.

The worker thought the hospital was going to use the space to construct a new entrance. At least they spared the large tree to the right of the photo (for now). You can click on the photo to make it larger.

10 Replies to “Missing Tooth on Broadway”

  1. It is hard to describe the changes to this scene. My house, on the dead end Sunset Court (behind the existing tree), was to the immediate right of the big parking garage. When torn down, they did not save the two big gum trees in our front yard. Henry Zinn & family lived in a large brick house where the garage is. In olden times he owned all of the land along and above that part of Broadway (a carpenter, he built our house). He told me once that a ‘water witcher’ traced an underground stream through his property to the corner where Dr. Wolff’s office was, and that a spring used to be there. I went to the Broadway storm drain there, and saw water pouring from underground into it. This would have been around 1954 or so.

      1. Scott – wrong generation. ‘Aunt Imer’, Imogene Miller, was my Mom’s sister. I keep up with her surviving daughter, my first cousin Dana, who lives in Denver.

      2. Hi Scott,

        Imogene Miller was my Mother. She died at 86 in 2006. She was living in Fargo, ND where my family lived for 25 years. We now live North of Denver in Windsor (Southeast of Fort Collins).

        Dana (Miller) Johnsn

  2. Yes, that was Dr. Wolff’s office I think I had my eyes checked there…I was nearsighted and THAT is why playing baseball was always a challenge for me, and I took up swimming. That whole Southeast Hospital area is totally changed from the olden days of yore.

  3. Did you ever write about the dinosour bones found in Cape? Supposedly the University of MO was digging it. Some where in an old farm and the school bought the whole farm

  4. Cecilia, I haven’t heard of a Cape dinosaur discovery, but I’ve been gone a long time. The discovery I am aware of was made by a fellow fossil collector, Bruce Stinchcomb, in Bollinger County and he did wait for the property to go up for sale and bought it to excavate the entire fossil. Bruce was (one of?) the developers of the Museum of Natural History in Marble Hill. He’s written several books on fossils.

  5. Thank you dennis and Mary Drum, When I was teaching middle school in St.Charles, MO in the 90’s I took an Anthropology class at UMSL and the teacher mentioned the dig.
    Cecilia Sinnwell

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