Name Dropping

In his book Beer, Brats and Baseball (Second Edition) author Jim Merkel writes about “The Streets with Two Names” in St. Louis, sharing how Frank Knapstein, a German immigrant had his own name on a block long street just south of Meramec in 1916. He was a contractor and he was building brick homes along the street. Then, World War I came, and suddenly everything German was bad, including street names. To be less offensive, Knapstein Place became Providence Place. Nativism and anti-German hysteria had taken hold on everything Merkel mounted… Read more Name Dropping →