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National Exhibition Company

... Here champions will be made ... amid the plaudits of 20,000 spectators. Pageantry and the super-spectacle drama, music and the voices of great conclaves will be seen and heard ...

National Exhibition Company Brochure, 1929

The September 1929 party celebrating the completion of this architectual showcase ended, appropriately enough, with a pageant. To dramatize the building's versatility, showgirls performed numbers in diarymaid dresses and jockey suits, as well as circus, boxing and aircraft costumes.

It probably was the last time Holcombe or anyone else at the gathering felt like celebrating. Just a few weeks later, the stock market crashed and drove the country into the Great Depression. Kiewitt and Sohrmann were never paid for their work, and the building born to be a cow palace hosted only one National Dairy Show.

It ran for 10 days in October of 1929 and was planned to be the largest agricultural exposition in the world. Participants came from 30 states and brought along 1,500 head of purebred stock. The Dairy Association also sponsored horse and poultry shows. Other events, such as a St. Louis Exposition, a national aircraft show and boxing matches, came and went. But as the country sank deeper into the Depression, the Arena and the hopes of its owners sank with it.

Ben Brinkman and the small group of original investors - including George H. Holcombe and his successor, Maj. M.J. Pickering - personally carried the venture, advancing cash and renewing temporary bank loans. The principal owners of the Arena each held one share of $10 par value common stock issued to qualify them as directors. Looking for ways to recuperate their investment and make a small profit, they tried to attract large exhibitions that, before the Depression, had been willing to pay substantial rent.

But the Depression wasn't its only obstacle. Competition grew fierce as other cities recognized the value of large conventions and began offering their municipally-owned facilities at little or no cost. As reported in the Feb. 13, 1931, Globe-Democrat: "An outstanding example is the Road Show. In January of this year, that great gathering was held at the Arena and paid a rental of $20,000. We understand the officials were greatly pleased with St. Louis and would like to come back here in 1932, but have been offered free space in another city in a new municipally owned building. It has been conservatively estimated that the Road Show brought in over $2 million to St. Louis. Is it fair to ask a few individuals to make further sacrifices in order to secure this show for 1932?"

As if to illustrate the magnitude of the problem, a turtle derby was the biggest event booked in 1930. Participants bought dime-store turtles for 25 cents and entered them in races, which were conducted in tanks built on the Arena's dirt floor. Fortunately, the turtles didn't receive part of the gate percentage in the way that all boxing match participants did later that year. Apparently, the fellow in charge of the contracts lost track of the promises he made. When everything was said and done, 110 percent of the gate receipts had been pledged to the boxers. For every dollar that was collected, it cost a dime, making the boxing match of December 1930 the only event to which Arena management hoped no tickets would be sold. Not even Sally Rand's vaudeville act could claim success, even though the same show had played to packed audiences at the Chicago World's Fair just weeks before.

About the only good news during the Arena's first full year of operation was the announcement that the building would bring hockey to St. Louis. William P. Grant, president and manager of the KC Pla-Mors and secretary of the American Hockey Association, and Walter R. Whiteside, president of the Tulsa Oilers, signed a lease on Feb. 12, 1930, that promised at least one hockey team for the 1931-1932 season.

The news prompted work to begin on the largest indoor ice hockey playing surface to date in the world, where on Dec. 26, 1931, C.D.P. Hamilton Jr., owner of the Chicago Blackhawks, brought in his farm team, the Flyers, to play the Chicago Shamrocks. Shrimp McPherson, scored the Flyers' only goal in a game that ended in a tie. McPherson would go on to become an equipment manager in the first season of the St. Louis Blues.

Covering that first game, the Dec. 27, 1931, Post-Dispatch marveled at the building's loud speaker that "kept the crowd advised of changes in the lineups and of the penalties and the cause of them." But, neither puck men nor fisticuffs could keep the Arena from falling into a deeper financial chill.

In May of 1931, St. Louis Mayor Victor Miller urged the city to purchase the Arena in a letter sent to the Chamber of Commerce: "The Arena on Oakland Ave. was constructed by public spirited citizens who had no desire for profit, but who desired to help the city of St. Louis. These men have constructed an exposition building, which I am advised is second to none in the United States. It is superior in ground, floor space, parking facilities, railroad, facilities, airplane land fields, seating capacity and numerous other advantages. The city of St. Louis should consider the purchase of this property in my opinion because as a city, we would be in a better position to compete, for conventions and expositions than would be a privately owned enterprise."

In response to the mayor's suggestion, the National Exhibition Company stated it would be willing to sell the Arena to the city at a loss or "in the neighborhood of $2 million." Just two weeks later, the Globe-Democrat reported a plan being advanced to pull down the Arena to make room for an apartment center. If Aldermanic President Walter Neun had had his way, that's what would have happened, as he immediately opposed Mayor Miller's proposal, saying the city did not have the money to purchase the Arena.

The fiery debate that ensued was matched only by a spectacular fire that lit the Sept. 30, 1931, sky and destroyed a barn on the Arena grounds used to store feed and house livestock. By the next year, things had gotten so bad for Ben Brinkman and his band of unhappy investors that the Arena's electric bills went unpaid, making it the site of the first indoor hockey game played on natural ice. On Dec. 26, 1932, the Flyers' management was forced to open every door and window so the ice would freeze. That season, the players went without pay, and the Arena owners went into foreclosure.

The first penalty shot ever scored in The National Hockey League happened at the arena on Nov. 13, 1934. Ralph Bowman of the St. Louis Eagles, St. Louis' first NHL team, made the landmark point against the Montreal Maroons. The Reorganization Investment Corporation (RIC), with its president C.D.P. Hamilton Jr., owned the Arena that year after purchasing the bonds issued by Brinkman's syndicate. Known by this time as a gasping white elephant with an operating deficit exceeding $636,511, the RIC tried to sell the building for $150,000, with no takers.

Obviously, the Arena needed more than penalty shots to bring it back to life. It needed someone with energy and vision to see its potential. It needed Emory D. Jones. Jones worked for the RIC. He wore a Stetson, smoked a constant stream of cigars and was credited with turning the Arena from an abandoned exhibition hall into a top entertainment center in 15 years. "My dad went from a dirt farm in Georgia to World War I to Georgia Tech and on to Saint Louis University, where he graduated top of his class," says Tom Parker Jones. "He never imagined he would have a career in the entertainment business, but he did. And we all benefited. What a fun time we had growing up."

Emory Jones did more for the arena than attract events. He attracted potential buyers. On Sept. 5, 1947, Arthur Wirtz business partner, Jim Norris, bought the enterprise from the Reorganization Investment Corporation for approximately $2 million.

Wirtz already owned the Chicago Blackhawks and produced the Sonja Henie Hollywood Ice Review, the Barnes Brothers Circus, rodeos and other events. He also had interests in sports and event venues in Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis and Omaha.

Patti Smith Jackson. St. Louis Arena: Memories. GHB Publishers. December 1, 1999.

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