(gentle music) - [Jim] St. Louis's Chinatown was part of the city for a hundred years.

- It was people kind of stayed together, looked out for each other.

- [Jim] And then it was gone, but not forgotten.

We take a short trip to St. Charles to learn about a long trip and get on board with the Lewis and Clark saga.

- Are always working on the boats.

Boats are definitely a labor of love, and ours are, all three are operational.

- [Jim] At Union Avenue Opera, the show must go on.

But even if a tornado nearly takes off the roof?

- I mean, in a couple minutes, it just was, went from one thing to the next in two minutes.

- [Jim] It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - I'm Jim Kirchherr, and we're gonna start with a story about something about this city's history that some people just didn't want us to forget.

It wasn't an event, it was actually a place, a community, that was at least physically wiped off the map.

Veronica Mohesky though shows us how the story is being kept alive.

- [Veronica] For 97 years, Downtown St. Louis was home to a small but thriving Chinatown.

Today, the area where it once stood is being honored with a street sign.

- I don't think a lot of people know this story about Chinatown.

I think if you say, "Hey, did you know there was a Chinatown in St.

Louis?"

people say, "Oh, yeah, it's off of Olive."

- [Veronica] Michelle Li is a KSDK news anchor and co-founder of The Very Asian Foundation.

And while St. Louis does have an unofficial Chinatown on Olive Boulevard in University City, that's not what she's talking about.

- I think that people are shocked to know that there was a Chinatown here for nearly a century and that we had Chinese migrants in St. Louis in the 1800s, pre-Civil War.

- [Veronica] Li is one of many St. Louisans working to find ways to remember St. Louis's Chinatown.

The main block stood between Market and Walnut and 7th and 8th Street and was demolished in the name of urban renewal in 1966.

It was known in its early days as Hop Alley, which is now considered to be a derogatory term.

The name is due to the area's distribution of opium before it was outlawed in 1909.

- Hop makes a reference to drugs, the belief that it was hopped-up.

And the press were horrible back then and they used it all the time, and so people just got used to using the term Hop Alley, because there was opium, plenty of opium dens down in this area.

- [Veronica] That's Peter Tao, an architect and one of the founders of Tao + Lee Associates.

But when it comes to St. Louis's Chinatown, he is known as the Accidental Historian.

He says he became invested in local Chinese American history while researching his father's history in 2017.

Today, he's the de facto expert on St. Louis's Chinatown.

(gentle music) A man named Alla Lee was St. Louis's first Chinese immigrant.

He came in 1857 from the West Coast.

- Alla Lee actually opened up a teahouse, and then things just, you know, slowly built from there.

- [Veronica] And more Chinese immigrants began to arrive in the 1870s.

- The first wave might've been 150.

It probably only grew to maybe 800, 900 total, you know, during those years.

You also have to put in the lens that by 1882 in the United States, that's when the Chinese Exclusion Act came about.

- [Veronica] Tao says the Exclusion Act caused widespread distrust of Chinese immigrants.

- There was a general target on any Chinese back from 1882 onward, with the belief that they could be here illegally.

This Chinatown that we had was constantly being raided by immigration services.

You know, that's kinda why it's existed.

It was people kinda stayed together, looked out for each other, and eventually then it developed as a little community.

- [Veronica] The Chinatown's most well-known businesses were laundries and restaurants.

- Statistically, it's believed that Chinese laundries comprised 60% of the laundries in the city.

There was merchants, teashops, business organizations, and restaurants.

- [Veronica] The restaurants in the area attracted Chinese Americans as well as White patrons.

Author Ed Shew's father worked at the well-known restaurant the Orient.

- There was like three locations of the Orient Restaurant in downtown.

And I know looking at some promotional advertising that it was like one of the go-to places, like people would go to the theater downtown and always stop there before or after.

- [Veronica] And though the Chinatown wasn't huge, it was an important cultural center.

- It was a place where you could go, you can feel a little safe, and be around whoever was the fuel of, you know, of your kind.

- [Veronica] 92-year-old Don Ko, president of Dragon Trading Company, remembers it as a welcoming place when he was a new immigrant to the United States.

- I think probably about 1951 or '52.

Then I go down, I get as kind of familiar with the people, then I go down, play mahjong sometime and on the weekend.

- [Veronica] An important part of the Chinese community in St. Louis was the On Leong Merchants Association, which began in the 1920s.

- [Peter] They were basically representing the businesses.

They set up the rules for how businesses could get started, particularly laundries.

- Those, they are like a protection.

Like if you own a laundry in the St. Louis area, the other person, they're not supposed to be open within 700 feet.

If you have a restaurant, you're not supposed to be open within at least 500 feet away.

So this way, everybody will make a living.

- [Veronica] Don Ko became a member of the On Leong in 1957 and later was one of its presidents.

Ko even has some of the original banners that hung in the On Leong's offices, some of which he estimates to be over 100 years old.

- If you have any problem, they could help you.

They have a English translator.

- Well, they help people with courts, or they help people when the police come in and then they have to, you know, they're questioning, and so they might bring people in to help with interpretation.

So ultimately, they became this kind of community representative.

So with this organization over their various eras, then when you say, "Who might be the community leaders?"

there was these kind of unofficial mayors of Chinatown.

They were basically the presidents of the On Leong.

- [Veronica] One unofficial mayor was a man named Joe Lin.

- He ran a very famous Orient Restaurant.

He was a, you know, a local businessman, and he ultimately became a president.

And there's a whole series of them, and they all have different levels of involvement.

Sometimes good, (chuckles) sometimes bad.

Many of 'em were actually buried here, still in St. Louis.

- [Veronica] The members of the On Leong weren't the only prominent community members though.

One was just a boy.

- Yeah, Hop Leong's a great story.

He's a boy who, when you go to the Madison School, if you were Chinese, you were put in a special class to make sure you were kind of understanding the American ways, the education system, language, et cetera.

- [Veronica] Once Henry finished the special class, he was allowed to play sports.

- And he went on and joined the baseball group and became fascinated with it.

And the wonderful story is that he became such a student of the game that he'd learned every pitch, he became a pretty good pitcher.

- [Veronica] Even the Cardinals took notice of Henry Leong.

Cardinals administrator Branch Rickey came to visit the school and brought the boys' team to a game at Sportsman's Park.

Another famous community member is Annie Leong of the famous Asia Cafe restaurant.

- She became very much the face of the restaurant and then also the spokesperson for just the Chinese community because she was very Americanized and she could kind of, she had no problem kind of speaking out and talking and explaining things to people.

So she was great, it was great to have a woman being the advocate back at that time.

- [Veronica] Annie Leong remained the face of Chinatown as the area was about to be demolished.

- So she was, they were down there to the very end.

They were actually literally the last occupants before they had to relocate when there was not much left of Chinatown.

And yet you saw this young woman just still enjoying life.

It was her home, even though her home was disappearing.

- [Veronica] In 1966, St. Louis's Chinatown was demolished.

The demolition was part of a much larger urban renewal plan, which raised many areas in St. Louis city, but mostly those of non-White and poor communities, such as the historically Black Mill Creek Valley neighborhood.

- Nothing much they could do because the city take over.

You can't fight the city hall.

- But, you know, honestly, I can't necessarily fault the 1960s.

This was during urban renewal.

This is when the nation was trying to revitalize itself and make it better.

But it always comes at a cost, and it comes at a cost to communities of color and communities who might not speak out.

- [Veronica] The area was raised to make way for the construction of Busch Stadium and its parking lots.

- So the block, which was already deteriorating, so the block was demolished and remained a parking lot for almost 11 years.

So it's kinda sad you lose an entire community because of that.

(melancholy music) - [Veronica] The community didn't disappear though.

Many moved to different areas of the city or St. Louis County.

And St. Louis still has a thriving Chinese community today as well as an unofficial Chinatown on Olive Boulevard.

But Peter Tao and others are determined to make sure the former Chinatown is remembered, and not just as restaurants and laundries, but as a place where notable people lived and found community.

In 2017, Peter Tao began conversations with the Missouri History Museum about collecting more of St. Louis's Chinese American history.

In 2021, the Missouri History Museum's Chinese Collecting Initiative began.

- So the mission is simply to collect history, research history in photographs, oral histories, any kind of writings, artifacts.

- [Veronica] Michelle Li, Peter Tao, and others were also involved in getting the street sign to honor the lost Chinatown.

In May of 2024, Alderwoman Cara Spencer, now the mayor, introduced a bill which was co-written by Li and Tao that would rename part of South 8th Street "On Leong Way" after the merchants association.

- The On Leong was obviously a group that was representing more than just themselves.

The other reason was that in the direct translation of On Leong, it actually means peaceful and benevolent.

So we thought that was a very kind of more spiritual way of acknowledging the history of this lost Chinatown.

- [Veronica] On June 7th, 2024, the bill passed.

Li's Very Asian Foundation also helped raise funds for the sign.

On May 30th, 2025, the sign was put up on the corner of Market and 8th Street.

An official celebration had to be postponed due to the May 16th tornado.

- So we want people to kinda look at it and go, "What is On Leong Way?"

And then hopefully one day, we'll have a marker here that will have then maybe a QR code that then they can learn a little bit more.

- [Veronica] And though the sign is done, Michelle Li says their work isn't.

- You know, I feel like we're never gonna get it 100% 'cause how can people, how can 100% of people feel 100% happy?

There's just a lot of racial healing that our city needs.

And I hope that there have, I mean, I really do feel like there have been some wonderful solidarity moments throughout history in St. Louis with the Asian American community, with the Black community, with other communities, but there's still so much work to do.

(gentle music fades) - So if you're thinking staycation this year, there's plenty to do.

After all, people come a long way to see stuff that maybe we hardly notice or haven't been to since a grade school field trip.

And that's what we did.

I might have summed it up this way in fourth grade when I went, it was interesting and I learned a lot.

There's always something to see at the Lewis & Clark Boat House and Museum in St. Charles, but this weekend in May was special, which was why we were here, let's say, aiming to go.

(gun banging) - There you go.

- Oh, yeah, not much.

The special activities this weekend focused on the bicentennial of the Hawken rifle.

The Hawken brothers started making muzzleloaders in St. Louis in 1825.

And for decades of westward expansion, the Hawken was the gun of choice.

- Well, they were exemplary as far as the Hawken rifles evolved into the quintessential plains rifle.

- [Jim] Greg Grimes is in the antique gun business.

- They were owned by the professional hunters, the guides, you know, people like Kit Carson.

- So they play a role in an important part of this country's history.

- Absolutely.

- [Jim] But it's what happened in St. Charles 21 years before the introduction of the Hawken rifles that is the real theme of this museum.

- We really are proud to showcase our spot alongside the river.

The heart of this story for St. Charles is that Lewis and Clark were here for five days right before their expedition.

It was the last outpost of civilization at the time.

This was the spot, 3:30 in the afternoon on May 21st, 1804, the crowd waved, said goodbye, and the full complement of men, the two captains, and the three boats all left and went a grand total of three miles on that first day.

- So when people come here though, they probably wanna see the boats, right?

- Oh, absolutely.

- Yeah.

- And we are always working on the boats.

Boats are definitely a labor of love, and ours are, all three are operational, so we have to keep them behind the gate.

But there's a viewing platform where people can look in, especially to the Keelboat, which is our jewel, they can really check that out.

And then they can also, you know, touch it and get close.

And then we're trying to get the boats on the river a couple times a year with reenactors, which really brings the whole moment of history to life.

(lighthearted music) - Museum dioramas give you an idea of the kinds of activities that took place, but they have on loan here an authentic piece of Missouri history that was found in the Ozarks.

So this is the real thing, this is not- - Oh, yeah, this is- - It's not a replica, that- - Right.

Dugout is made of Osage orange, a common tree, and it has been carbon-dated to around 1800.

- Wow.

- [Bill] So the time of Lewis and Clark.

- And Lewis and Clark, it's still a great story.

- Oh, absolutely.

- I mean, this is not a forgotten part of our history.

- There are so many elements that you can talk about and ones that resonate today.

And because we're a partner with the National Park Service, we draw a lot of people that are traveling the whole country with the National Trail.

We also are on the Katy Trail, so we get a ton of people that are traveling the trail, and we're a great place to stop.

And also being very close to historic St. Charles, it's a very convenient place.

- [Jim] The Lewis and Clark Boat House in St. Charles is one of those places that people will come a long way to visit but is often bypassed by those of us who live here.

And while this was a special event, you still might wanna give it a shot.

(gun bangs) - There you go.

(soft music) - Finally, a story that was in the works and then it took a turn for the worse.

Ruth Ezell on the local opera company that was hit by the May 16th tornado.

- On April 25th, we visited Union Avenue Opera Company to talk to its costume designer about her plans for a production of "My Fair Lady."

But before that story could be broadcast, St. Louis was slammed by the deadly storms of May 16th.

And so we came back to see what damage Union Avenue Church sustained and what repairs are underway.

We got an up-close look at the roof, where tiles had been shattered by powerful winds.

Our guide was artistic director Scott Schoonover.

- Up here, you can see damage of the city and also of our roof here, all the tiles that are coming off.

But, of course, looking across over there, this is the former Westminster Presbyterian Church across here that lost so much of their roof.

And then we're looking down Enright here, and you can just see the massive destruction of all these houses here.

It's just terrible, it's very sad.

And it changed overnight, I mean, in a couple minutes.

It just was, went from one thing to the next.

So we're right now over the top of the chancel area, which is also our stage.

And you can see here, those are where lights go down into it.

This is where we hang our lighting grid from.

But the biggest thing to see up here is this new structure of wood that goes all the way from here, it's about a 60-foot span and a 25-foot span this way.

This was all open to the elements, completely gone, sucked out by the storm.

It was a huge hole.

When I first came up here, I was the first person to come up here, I just could not believe my eyes when I saw this.

And you can see the bell tower off in the distance here and there was wind blowing through here and... All this debris had of course fallen down here, which a lot of it they've picked up, but these are roofing tiles that you see here that fell off its clay roof.

- [Ruth] The rosette of the east side stained-glass window was sucked right out.

But stained-glass damage overall could have been much worse.

- The center of our windows, because this was a building that was built in 1907, it allowed air in through those rosettes.

The center of it is on a chain, you can pull it, and it opens.

And so when the pressure came, instead of taking the whole window, it sucked that piece out, that center piece, which equalized the pressure inside here.

And one of our rosettes didn't have any damage at all, where this one just had the middle and the other one very slight damage.

But that's just my own supposition, but I think it's probably partially true, at least.

- [Ruth] Piano technician Keith Wehmeier was called in for emergency duty.

- So when I got here, I had glass all up underneath the strings here and in the webbing of the tuning pins.

So I swept underneath the side and vacuumed out what I could and had been brushing through to get all the remnants of everything.

But what was surprising was all the glass that had made it in this cavity where the keys normally sit.

So, there was glass all up under here, sitting here as well.

And so I took all of the stack off the keys and everything, vacuumed everything I could there, and then lifted the keys off of the frame and vacuumed everything there, so.

And I found glass all up underneath the keys, under here, everything.

And I mean, they're lucky that the piano was closed because it hit over on this, what we call the fallboard that protects the keys, and it would've just crushed these keys, and would've had to replace the keytops at the very least, if not the key set.

- So there's been a lot of activity since our previous visit.

(gentle music) So, Teresa, you called this organized chaos.

- Oh my gosh, yes.

- How?

(both laughing) Teresa Doggett has created the costumes for every Union Avenue Opera production over the past 19 years.

At the time we visited with her, Doggett was in the early stages of costuming "My Fair Lady," the opening production of Union Avenue's 2025 festival season.

- This is a stock item that I have in my collection, and I knew that it would be perfect for Eliza.

- [Ruth] Eliza Doolittle is the fictional Cockney flower seller and protagonist in the George Bernard Shaw play "Pygmalion" and later in "My Fair Lady," the musical adaptation.

- I have all of May to get costumes built for first rehearsal that is on the 16th or 17th of June.

We have two weeks of rehearsal and then we start tech week, and everything has to be done.

- And how big a cast are we talking about?

- I think we have 22 people in the cast, 23 people in the cast, I believe, that's principals and chorus members, so it's a pretty large cast.

And being an old-school musical too, it means that there's a lot of costume changes.

- [Ruth] And that means despite the size of Doggett's costume collection, which at any given time contains at least 1500 individual pieces, many of the outfits for "My Fair Lady" are being built from scratch.

Doggett's sketches and fabric swatches reveal her vision for what Union Avenue audiences will experience.

"My Fair Lady" director, Annamaria Pileggi.

- When I was performing, lo these many years ago, I loved the moment when I put on a costume, because it was as if I finally entered into the fiction of the play and into the fullness of the humanity of that character.

And it's exciting to see that.

And in a place like Union Avenue, costumes are so important because they're also creating the world.

I mean, we will have set and lighting and all of that, but in terms of the period of this piece, which is so specific, right, 1912, London, the clothing is, I would say, the signature piece of that transformation for the audience.

- I would imagine that you're so immersed in your work that when it finally comes time to sit back and see the full result of what you've done, can you relax even then?

- No.

(laughs) (Ruth laughs) Because I always see something I could have done better, I always see something that I go, oh, why did I decide to do that?

Or, ooh, that is really not a good color right there.

So it doesn't happen very often.

But, you know, when you're a perfectionist, you want it to be wonderful and you want the audience to love it and you want the actors to love it, but it's hard in being an independent costume designer when you're the one-woman show.

But sometimes I sit back.

At the opening night, I sit right at the back of the theater in one of the church pews that's up against the wall, and I just go.

(inhales) (Teresa exhales) - [Ruth] Union Avenue patrons are breathing a sigh of relief too since the announcement the season will open as planned.

(gentle music) - And that's "Living St.

Louis."

Keep your comments and suggestions coming to NinePBS.org/LSL.

Thanks for joining us, I'm Jim Kirchherr, and we'll see ya next time.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] "Living St. Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.