Culture

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[HISTORICAL ST. LOUIS]

Secret Histories

Neil and Veronica Putz dig into the stories of some of Soulard’s oldest houses

Written by BENJAMIN SIMON

On a recent Friday, Neil Putz took the day off from work, but he didn’t spend it relaxing at his century-old, redbrick Soulard home. He and his wife, Veronica, went on a date to St. Louis City Hall, where they scoured the papers at the Recorder of eeds office. t was uly, nearly five months before the Soulard parlor tours begin, but the Putzes were already getting started. As members of the Soulard Restoration Group istorical ommittee, they have a lot of history to dig up.

“This is like walking out and turning over a rock, eil says. “You don’t know what you’re going to find. ut it can be so e citing.

Since 2016, Neil and Veronica have helped to lead, and discover hidden histories for the Soulard Restoration Group parlor tours. Organized by the neighborhood association, house tours — or parlor tours as they call them in Soulard — are common throughout t. ouis city, where visitors walk through select homes in a neighborhood. Normally priced around $50, these tours are essential to the financial vitality of neighborhood associations, often serving as the main source of funding to keep them running. ut the ut es put a different spin on these tours. They don’t see them as open-house events.

They see them as history tours.

They do months of research to uncover the lives of these homes. They’ve turned up houses that once held a dancehall and a bowling alley. They’ve learned about people who emigrated through Ellis sland from avaria and eventually made their way to St. Louis.

Historical fire insurance maps, like these of Soulard in 1897, are some of the documents the Putz’s examine. | COURTESY BENJAMIN SIMON

They’ve found the neighborhood lamplighter, who woke up every night and lit the street candles. They share stories about Pierre Laclede’s mistress and “Little Charlie, as they call him, who died in a World War I gas attack.

“There are indicators all around us, eil says. When we start to investigate those things, all of a sudden it fits together. eronica and eil first started researching houses in 2015, when they were asked to show their home on the tour. They agreed, but they weren’t sure how to prepare. “We didn’t know what to say or what to do, eronica says. re they just coming through? Walking in and leaving What is it

So they decided to learn the history of their home. They weren’t professional historians by any means. Neil spent 26 years in the military, and Veronica was a director of sales in the hospitality industry. ut they spiraled down the rabbit hole of historical research. They looked at census records and visited the issouri istorical Society. They learned that in 1865, for example, 27 people and seven separate families lived in their home.

On the day of the tour, people wouldn’t leave the ut home, staying to listen to the history and ask questions. The Putzes slowed down the entire tour with their history, they joke.

Shortly afterward, the Soulard Restoration Group asked them to

Veronica Putz examines historical records. | COURTESY NEIL AND VERONICA PUTZ

unearth the history of every home on these yearly tours. ince then, the ut es have turned themselves into oulard historians. Each year, they research the six houses and one commercial business on the tour, which takes place in early December. They then write a synopsis of the history and collect historical documents for homeowners to share with visitors.

They’ve developed a whole science to discovering the nitty-gritty details of these homes. They start by running through property records at City Hall, where they’ll find the first owners and any structural changes. They’ll secure fire insurance maps from the early 1890s and census records from the 1800s. Then they’ll let the information guide them down a path. In the end, they’ll have a full portrait of the home who has lived there, where they worked, what changes they made to the house, who came after them and what it all says about the neighborhood.

Their work has led them to start a historical committee within the Soulard Restoration Group. They hope to teach other residents in Soulard, and across the city, how to research their homes. ow could you ever be pleased with brand-new construction out in the county somewhere eil says. Yes, you might have a nice home and a swimming pool in the back and all that. ut how can you be happy with that, when you’ve lived in a home that has such a deep history

Neil and Veronica don’t get paid. This is just how they spend their free time their vacation days, evenings and weekends s uinting at census records, huddled in the City Hall Recorder of Deeds office, trying to unearth the secrets of Soulard homes. They spend so much time doing research that the workers at the issouri istorical Society know them personally.

“We walk in, and they say, ‘Oh, here’s the oulard people,’ eil says. “They know us because they’re always kicking us out at closing time because we’re there researching our little hearts out. We’re passionate, eronica adds, laughing. “We don’t want to leave. n