These photographs depict Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis, the initial home stadium of the St. Louis Browns (now Cardinals), in circa 1890. They are mounted on maroon Kodak mounts with gold gilt edges.
Before we even delve into the images themselves, we can narrowly determine the year they were taken and printed within a tight window. The photos were taken with the first-generation Kodak camera, the Kodak 1 introduced in 1888, which produced 2.5-inch round mounted images such as our photos. The Kodak 1 came preloaded with film for 100 images, when shot the camera would be mailed back to Kodak where the images would be printed and mounted, the camera reloaded with film and all returned to the owner of the camera. The backs of our photos are all on this type of photo mount which is 4.25 x 5.25, has guilt edges and floral motif:
The Eastman Company was incorporated in 1889 and changed its name to Eastman Kodak in 1892 according to the company history published by Kodak. Our mount references the “Kodak Camera” and shows the business as “The Eastman Company”, so our photos must have been taken no earlier than 1888 and printed within the 1889 to 1892 time frame. Here is a 1892 or after similar mount after the change to Eastman Kodak.
We can establish the city by reading the advertising on the outfield walls.
Right field top sign: “From St. Louis to Denver, Kansas City, St. Joseph, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Spirit Lake. Ticket Office 112 North 4th Street and Union Depot”
Right field bottom sign: “E.C. Meacham Arms Co. St. Louis Depot for the sale of a A.G. Spalding & Bros. Base Ball & Athletic Goods. E.C. Meacham Arms Co.”
Left Field sign: “…our hats at Ben. Miller’s 603 Franklin Ave.”
The train station is listed as “Union Depot” which was the station until the larger “Union Station” opened in 1894. E.C. Meacham was a St. Louis company which operated throughout the 1880s and 1890s, and obviously Spalding was a seminal company in early baseball. Benjamin Miller was a hat and fur store that operated in St. Louis during that time frame as well at that Franklin address.
Now that we know the city and the approximate date of the photos, a key to determining the location of the ballpark depicted within St. Louis are the two buildings visible beyond the ballpark wall in the image below, the long flat roofed commercial building and the A-frame house with the distinctive horizontal line near its apex.
Here are two known photographs of Sportsman’s Park in 1907, one with the runner wearing the home uniform of the St. Louis Browns, such uniform only worn in 1907. Our photo is below those two.
The flat roof building and distinctive A-frame house are the same as the ones in our photo. But clearly the orientation of the field and the grandstands have completely changed as the structures are now behind home plate rather than the right field wall. To explain that we need to delve into the history of the baseball stadiums that have been located at the corner of Grand and Dodier in St. Louis over the history of the Cardinals.
The first such park was the Grand Avenue Grounds shown here in a 1875 bird’s eye view map of St. Louis.
The park is bounded by Grand Avenue at bottom and Spring Avenue at top. The unmarked road at right is Sullivan Avenue, Dodier Street has yet to be carved out to the left of the ballpark. Of particular importance is to note the diamond and grandstand in the lower right or southwest corner of the block.
From 1882-1891 the St. Louis Browns (Cardinals) played at this location when it became known as Sportsman’s Park rather than Grand Avenue Grounds. This iteration of Sportsman’s Park was the original home stadium for the Cardinals franchise in its St. Louis Browns American Association iteration.
The grandstand during this period looks like this, this would have been behind the photographer in our photos.
The colorful owner of the Browns during this period was Christopher Von Der Ahe who was one of the original characters in baseball. He installed a beer garden in a structure down the right field line which was actually in play. Looking at our photo, we can see this beer garden structure down the right field line and clearly crossing over into the field of play to the left of the foul line.
Fire plagued the stadium in the 1890s and it was rebuilt several times. This article in the February 8, 1891 St. Louis Post-Dispatch describes major renovations then underway at Sportman’s Park and mentions that the old seats along the west and north fences, the ones seen in our photos, have been torn down. Our photo must be from early 1891, or earlier, before the demolition.
Whipple’s 1895 fire map of St. Louis shows us the structures that were in place in 1895. Note the diamond and Grandstand are now in the northeast corner, at the corner of Spring and Sullivan. This is a complete reversal from our photos and must depict the new construction mentioned in the 1891 article.
When the Browns returned to this site in 1902 and built their new stadium this field orientation was retained.
The new grandstand is the northwest corner, at Spring and Sullivan and Dodier Street has been carved out beyond rightfield. We can see in the diagram above our flat roofed building and A-frame house outlined across Sullivan Avenue from the ballpark, they are visible through the gap in the grandstand and bleachers. If we look at our 1907 images again, we see the same buildings in the gap.
Clearly our photos depict Sportsman’s Park somewhere between 1888 and 1891 when the diamond was located in the corner that is presently the corner of Grand and Dodier and when rightfield abutted Sullivan Avenue and the structures we see across Sullivan in the 1907 images of Sportsman’s Park.
Also note what appears to be a flagpole and a scoreboard, called a “bulletin board” in the 1890s. Game descriptions from circa 1890 mention balls being hit to the bulletin board for a home run and there is a known 1880s shot of the St. Louis Browns team in front of the dark bulletin board shown below. Our picture is hazy, but it appears to be the bulletin board behind the flagpole in centerfield.
The action in the photos is a little harder to decipher. Athletic activities are clearly being conducted on the field. Is it track and field? Cricket? Spring Training?
Regardless of what event is depicted here, these images are the only ones that could be found showing the view looking out from the grandstand at the original Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis circa 1890.
