Home : Seventy Years At The Arena :

This Grand Old Dame Of Domes

The Most Modern Exposition Plant in America...Seats 21,000 People...5700 Oakland Ave., St. Louis

Has Survived:

1. A Staggering Depression,

2. The Embarrassment Of Bankruptcy,

3. The Ravages Of A Tornado,

4. The Dust And Rust Of Disuse And Misuse.

But unlike another physical eye-opener, the H.M.S. Titanic, the St. Louis Arena is unsinkable, magnificent at nearly 60 years of age, yet seemingly younger than brand new sports structures because of sight and sound superiority. Today's stuffy building codes don't permit the same cozy approach to viewing the flow of athletic action and other forms of entertainment. Cantilevered and with a lamella roof, the Arena was constructed at a time when indoor and outdoor stadiums were pockmarked with pillars and posts. Yet the Arena was more futuristic than any of her contemporaries and still more advanced than most buildings built since.

The Blues' fans were so enthusiastic that Pittsburgh Penguins Coach Red Kelly and his players (Glen Sather, 16, among them) donned earmuffs to dampen the noise, circa 1969.

The old dirigible hanger (yep, designed by a German who must have known how to house zeppelins) runs 476 feet long and 276 feet wide. Her 20 steel trusses, 18 tons each, support the 165-foot roof, described by one observer as "a vast teticulum of identical interlocking little rafters defining hundred of lozenge-shaped spaces, each one a bit offset from its neighbor, marching zigzag across the vault..." Arty exposition about engineering artistry, all right, inspired by the vision of Gustel R. Kiewett. The architect and engineering graduate of the University of Stuttgart turned the Arena into a model of construction now virtually extinct. So, unfortunately, are dirigibles. She's seen a lot, the Arena has. And her best days have been closely associated with hockey.

The Salomons, father and son, who brought the NHL back to St. Louis in 1967, turned her into a palace. They painted and petted her, added new and better seats and an escalator.

Ralston-Purina, which took over the team and building when the Blues were in the red, added a sophisticated sound system and the clincher, air conditioning. They also briefly rechristened her the Checkerdome; a name that, thankfully, was never immortalized by red and white squares facing skyward. So now, brightened and rebuilt, sitting on ground that might be more valuable if that long-itchy headache ball slammed her down, the Arena looks like she's going to outlast even those of us who can remember an early admirer gasping, "Why, it's so big and long, Babe Ruth couldn't hit a home run out of here." Built to house the National Dairy Show, the Arena opened while the Babe still was sports king, September 24, 1929. She took just over two years to complete and cost the then-staggering sum of $2 million.

A huge civic banquet celebrated the event, drawing 3,500 people. But the economy was soon crippled by Black Tuesday when the stock market crashed in October. After '29, the Dairy Show never returned. Hurting for both attractions and spectators, the Arena was rocked by the Great Depression more than his Arena foes (Buster Martin, Chuck Wiggins, and bulky hometown boy John Schwake) were rocked by Primo Camera. The king-sized Italian boxer who was given a carnival buildup in the early 1930s, Carnera took the heavyweight boxing title from Jack Sharkey in 1933.

The Arena's first hockey team was introduced on December 26, 1931. The Flyers, of the minor league American Hockey Association, enjoyed compelling Sunday night popularity. Times were so tough that even before modern-sized ice-making machinery was installed, a delinquent electrical bill left the Flyers with more water than ice before a game in 1932.

Ingenuity prevailed: Management threw open every door and window in the building and with Jack Frost puffing his cold cheeks, the water froze. A most uncomfortable crowd watched the only indoor hockey game ever played on natural ice in St. Louis. By 1933, with aldermen vacillating about buying the white elephant on Oakland Avenue for the city, the property was ordered sold under foreclosure with a net operating deficit of $636,511. You've heard about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? The new owners sold 6,149 Arena chairs to finance the $1,681 needed for the debut of their purchase. NHL hockey first surfaced in the 1934-35 season when the League transferred its Ottawa Senators to St. Louis. The team, renamed the Eagles, was best known for three future Hockey Hall of Famers, all for their accomplishments elsewhere: Carl Voss (later NHL referee-in-chief), Syd Howe (later a Detroit star) and Bill Cowley (a two-time NHL MVP with Boston). But the Eagles were generally an undistinguished last-place outfit.

Face-off between the St. Louis Eagles and the New York Rangers: Nov. 18, 1934

Meanwhile, St. Louisans sympathized with the dispossessed victorious underdogs, the Flyers, who were shipped from the Arena to back where they had started, across Forest Park to DeBaliviere Avenue. There in the Winter Garden, originally built as a jaialai fronton for the 1904 Olympics, the bandbox minors outdrew the big-building Eagles. The Eagles flew the coop after their only season and the town was left without a big league hockey franchise for 32 years. So how did the Arena survive? Primarily due to a shoe company heir named C.D.P. Hamilton. He and all his initials ran a tight-to-the-moccasin operation, foxily led by an investment banker turned hockey operator, Emory Jones. The Flyers were the primary attraction and the cream of the AHA from the mid-1930s until the outbreak of World War II (when the AHA suspended operations).

Still, money was scarce. One time, Hamilton only offered to pay Flyers players' way home rather than award them their season ending salaries. When asked his post-season destination, Flyers' elfish center Alex (Shrimp) McPherson piped up, "Glasgow, Scotland." Actually, he lived only a couple of blocks from the Arena. He didn't get carfare. But "Shrimp" did score the first goal ever in Arena history, on December 28, 1931. The Arena seated little more than 13,000 then. Ultimately, the Salomons would expand it to the point that, before the fire marshall blew the whistle, they squeezed in 20,009 to watch the March 31, 1973 game against Pittsburgh.

Another one-year attraction were the NHL eagles who moved from Ottawa for the 1934-35 season, found their way to matchbook covers and only 11 victories, then folded.

Full houses were rare, but not unheard of. At the end of World War II, a full house turned out for a basketball doubleheader, St. Louis U. vs. Oklahoma A&M and Washington U. vs. Tulsa. The star attractions were an All-American senior named Bob Kurland for Hank Iba's NCAA champion Aggies, a future All-American in St. Louis rookie "Easy" Ed Macauley and an incredibly talented Wash U. medical student named Stan London. Dr. London, long since team physician for the baseball Cardinals, also became a national doubles table tennis champion. Despite the box office success with the Missouri Valley Conference doubleheader, the Arena backed off when St. Louis' athletic director, Dukes Duford, asked the building to underwrite a game with Notre Dame. So Duford promoted the game himself at Kiel Auditorium. The Arena lost a popular product and what it needed most - dates.

Hamilton and associates did venture into the Basketball Association of America, immediate forerunner of today's NBA. The Bombers, coached by Ken Loffeler, late of Yale and subsequently NCAA championship coach at LaSalle, won one division title and narrowly missed another. Meanwhile the Flyers, who had returned as an American Hockey League franchise in 1944-45, had become a force in four seasons, coached by the popular Ebbie Goodfellow. The puckish Loffeler had great difficulty working for the penurious C. D. "Peanuts" Hamilton. When he finally resigned from the Bombers, he quipped to all who would listen, "I'm sure you're all a lot better off with Mr. Goodfellow than Mr. Meanfellow." Eventually, Hamilton sold the Arena to Arthur Wirtz of Chicago Stadium. When the Flyers finally met their ultimate demise after the 1952-53 season, the Arena became darker than the unfinished dungeons in her catacombs. But the Wirtz family allowed their Chicago Blackhawks to play some of their scheduled "home" games there, and St. Louisans never filed to turn out to see mid-'50s NHL hockey.

The house was also bright whenever a boxing championship changed hands as, for instance, when St. Louis' own crafty veteran, Archie (the Mongoose) Moore, cornered Joey Maxim for the light heavyweight championship in December 1952. In bad times, the price of the Arena had dipped as low as $150,000. The bowling alley next door was much busier and considerably more profitable than the Arena. Reportedly, St. Louis University once turned the big barn down as a gift.

Hockey returned in the early 1960s and the Wirtz family again played a big role. The NHL established the Central Hockey League to develop young talent. The Wirtz's put the St. Louis Braves in the Arena and such future NHL stars as Phil Esposito, Roger Crozier, Dennis Hull, Doug Jarrett, Fred Stanfield, Dave Dryden, Denis DeJordy and Pat Stapleton all skated for the Braves, who were coached by Gus Kyle.

By the time the NHL expanded by six teams in 1967, the Arena was worth $2 million to Sidney Salomon, Jr. as a home for the Blues. The Salomons came in and spent heavily, returning the Arena to a bright, viable building.

At the time the NHL first expanded from six to 12 teams, you must remember it was an old cronies' organization. And the most powerful of the cronies was Chicago Black Hawks' owner Jim Norris. As head of the Norris clan, he also owned, through his half-brother Bruce, the Detroit Red Wings and pieces of the Boston Garden and the old Madison Square Garden. Not for nothing was the NHL known as the Norris House League; or was Norris routinely referred to by distinguished New York sports columnist Red Smith as Octopus Inc.

At a time when pro football and basketball were expanding, the NHL had been getting hints from the U.S. government's anti-trust branch it should do the same. And more pointedly, Norris had been ordered to divest himself of the St. Louis Arena. As the home of the minor league St. Louis Braves, it wasn't worth much. As the home of a new NHL franchise, the value would go up dramatically. There, then, was the genesis of expansion. To cover future TV possibilities, two teams would go to the West Coast in California, two to the Midwest, in Minnesota and St. Louis, one to Philadelphia in the already well-covered East and, to keep Canada happy, the last one to Vancouver.

Over the years, the domed dowager had known six-day bike races ... wrestling matches ... political conventions ... an indoor softball team ... ice shows ... circuses ... basketball tournaments. Ahead would be an Arena Club, indoor soccer, rock concerts and more lighted nights, a result of flexibility and aggressive recruiting of promotions and ventures.

But for the moment - any moment - the Arena owes its present strength and stature to hockey, the man who brought the NHL back to St. Louis and his son who inspired him to do it for love rather than money. St. Louis, and the Arena, owe a lot to Sidney Salomon, Jr. and Sid III. Here's to the Salomons, their predecessors and successors: Thanks for the Arena and her memories.

by Bob Broeg, one of the "deans" of St. Louis sportswriters,
writes for the Post-Dispatch.

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