(bright instrumental music) - Welcome to "Living St.

Louis," I'm Brooke Butler.

And this week, we're on Cherokee Street; one of St.

Louis' most eclectic stretches, from vintage treasures, to quirky artistic expression, to authentic eats.

And, sure, it may be rough around the edges here and there, and the vibe isn't for everyone, but that's what makes it stand out.

And like any place worth mentioning in our city, it's the people who power Cherokee Street's aesthetic.

From the small business owners to the artists, to the bakers, they're what keeps St.

Louis' creative heart beating.

That same energy runs through our stories in today's show.

From uncovering local heirlooms on PBS's "Antiques Roadshow," to finding out what happened with the cannonballs leftover from the Civil War.

To a bakery baking up second chances, and a downtown landmark that redefined our skyline.

It's all next on "Living St.

Louis."

(jazzy orchestral upbeat music) (jazzy orchestral upbeat music continues) (jazzy orchestral upbeat music continues) (jazzy orchestral upbeat music continues) - If you're into antiquing, you're probably familiar with Antique Row on Cherokee Street.

This historic street has six blocks of locally-owned specialty and antique stores.

And, if you like these decades and centuries old treasures, there's a PBS show you might like, maybe you've heard of it.

In May, PBS's "Antiques Roadshow" came to St.

Louis to film episodes for their 30th season.

"Living St.

Louis" got a behind-the-scenes look at their production.

May 12th was a busy day for Grant's Farm, but this line of guests didn't come for the beer garden or the animals.

Thousands of attendees showed up with books, jewelry, art, and more to be appraised for the 30th season of "Antiques Roadshow."

- The last time we were in St.

Louis was in 2017, which was our final year of doing events and productions inside convention centers.

And since then, we've been going to these kind of outdoor, historical, iconic American locations.

- [Veronica] Jill Giles is the Line Producer for "Antiques Roadshow."

She's one of the people who helps choose the venues for appraisal events.

- As we try to like repeat, you know, places every five or 10 years, and it's been almost that long since we've been in St.

Louis.

And we know that we have a huge fan base here, we know we draw a great crowd.

I think St.

Louis was one of our highest ticket applications this year for the ticket lottery, so we knew we would draw a huge crowd.

- [Veronica] 19,837 people registered for tickets in St.

Louis according to Executive Producer, Marsha Bemko.

- And then when you think about the odds of getting a ticket, the odds of getting a ticket for this city, here in St.

Louis, it's a little over 10%.

The city with the least amount of applicants was Salt Lake City.

It's close to 20-25% the chance of getting a ticket, because they still had close to 9,000 applicants, but you had a lot more.

(intriguing upbeat music) - [Veronica] But to come back to St.

Louis, the roadshow team had to find the perfect location.

- And Grant's Farm is one of those weird locations that checks, like, every box.

You know, it has the home that Ulysses S. Grant built, so it has deepened history, it has the estate of the Anheuser-Busch family and that legacy, so, like, a giant estate, it's also a zoo, it's also a beer garden, courtyard.

And so, it's hard to like wrap your head around how many boxes it checks, but it's a pretty cool place.

- [Veronica] "Antiques Roadshow" arrived just one day early to set up for the over 3,000 guests and 23 appraisal categories, but the planning process took much longer.

- Yes, we've been working on this almost a year with the Roadshow team.

I can't tell you how excited we are, this is such a rare opportunity.

Not only is it exciting for us, it's really a big deal for the St.

Louis community.

- [Veronica] That's Steve Byrd, the General Manager for Grant's Farm.

He says that set up for the event went smoothly and the animals are mostly used to the commotion.

- Well, that is one of the challenges.

We are a farm, right?

So, you'll see peacocks roaming around and all our furry friends.

We've had to relocate a few of them to some other pens where there's filming areas, but this is their home, so they'll be watching the show just like St.

Louis.

- [Veronica] Some animals seem to enjoy the spotlight though.

(peacock shrieking) - You know, what's special about Grant's Farm is that while I'm sitting here talking to you, you're gonna hear a peacock.

(laughs) It's a really cool place.

This is a nice, natural environment.

We like not being in the convention centers, I have literally stood in a convention center and said, "Where am I?

", and I wasn't joking.

And so, it's really nice to be in a place that gives you a sense of place, it's a nice experience for the 2,500, 3,000 people we'll see tomorrow.

(enchanting bright orchestral music) - [Veronica] On the day of the event, 3,146 people came to have their antiques appraised.

Attendees brought all sorts of items.

- Well, I brought my mother's junk jewelry.

- [Attendee] I have been down there- - Okay.

- I keep telling her to call it costume jewelry- - It's a jewelry.

- But... - When... - Well, I believe this is a Salvador Dali lithograph, that's signed and numbered.

I have another print that goes with it that's from the same series.

We're not sure really what its value is.

We got it in a estate sale for a pretty good deal.

- What I have here, this is a birthday invitation from the emperor of Japan in 1904.

- Yeah, my dad collected a lot of music memorabilia.

So we've got some Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood, Scream prints, and then a Imagine vinyl signed by John Lennon.

- [Veronica] But only some people are chosen for the show.

- We're looking for something where the price does affect the story.

I think people are inherently affected by value, but also the stories themselves often tell a much bigger story, much bigger narrative, about either America or this particular person's family, or some other thing that the audience can relate to.

- [Veronica] Sam Farrell is a Supervising Producer at "Antiques Roadshow."

- This area is known for its ancient cultures, the ancient Mississippi cultures, we might see some of that.

And, of course, this was a gateway to the West, and this is where a lot of things came through during the Westward Expansion.

And there's a lot of history here.

- [Veronica] Choosing people for the show involves a lot of hands.

- We have a system with our volunteers calling a radio, calling our central appraisal liaison, who then enters it into a system.

- [Veronica] Then Farrell looks at the notes, and his team chooses people to advance.

- [Sam] And then we move people to the green room and then to taping.

Some people aren't so lucky and they don't get picked.

- [Veronica] One of the appraisers at the event was Nicholas Lowry, who has been on "Antiques Roadshow" for 29 years.

- It's been a fantastic experience.

I mean, almost 30 years doing anything, you either have to be incredibly passionate or a lunatic to do that.

(Veronica chuckles) So, it's half passion, half lunacy.

And, sometimes, it's just, "Oh my God, that's super cool, I wish I'd known."

Something's like, "Holy cow, that's super valuable."

You don't know what it is.

- Yeah.

- And so, you have to approach it with a childlike innocence.

(Nicholas cackling) (Veronica chuckles) (bright intriguing orchestral music) So thousands of people come through the door today, of which maybe a hundred actually get filmed.

So an appraisal that we do tableside here is gonna be very different from an appraisal that we do in front of the cameras.

And if we're doing an appraisal in front of the cameras, you want to get a little bit of the history, a little bit of the acquisition story, the origin story of the piece, and then the value.

So it's like you distill it down to a three-point appraisal to make it, you know, much better for the viewing audience.

- [Veronica] "Antiques Roadshow" also recruits some local crew and appraisers.

- I feel very fortunate that we're in St.

Louis, my hometown, and I'm hoping that I can find some examples of regional art that I've worked with so much in the past.

- [Veronica] Susan Kime is the President of Link Auction Galleries.

- So I've been in the auction business for 30 years, and I've handled a lot of local artists work.

So, selfishly, that's what I hope to see today.

- [Veronica] But the appraisal price doesn't need to be big for attendees to have a good time.

- This one's actually a more popular print, but this one goes for a couple of thousand dollars, and that this one can go for a little bit more than that, 'cause it's a more popular edition.

So, you know- - Wow.

- For the amount that we've paid, we're doing very good.

- Yes, you guys won today!

- I'm very excited.

Yes.

- Yeah.

(chuckles) - And it's just one of our favorite artworks in our house, so it's just nice to know, it's not going anywhere, but we just- - Yeah.

- I don't know, it's nice to kind of know what it's worth.

- [Veronica] The footage will appear in three "Antiques Roadshow" episodes: on April 27th, May 4th, and May 11th of 2026.

- I think the people from St.

Louis area, just like everybody that watches the show, I hope they feel connected to it the way that, you know, it reminds them, they'll see something in the episode that will remind them of their history.

(bright enchanting orchestral music) (bright enchanting orchestral music continues) (folksy country music) (metal clinking) - Have you ever wondered what happened with the leftover cannonballs from the Civil War?

In Carlinville, Illinois, they were used to build a jail.

(folksy country music) - Andrea and I really believe that we have an unbelievable amount of sights in town, that's historical and interesting.

- [Host] I sat down with Mary Tinder and Andrea Duncan of the Carlinville Tourism Committee to talk more about the jail's history.

- Its nickname is the Cannonball Jail.

It is a unique jail in and of itself.

And the reason it's called a Cannonball Jail is as they were building the stones that they used, they chiseled out both ends, and then they put a surplus Civil War cannonball in that joint.

And the reason for that was that the prisoners could chisel around the block and then push it out and escape.

- [Host] After the end of the American Civil War in 1865, many of the cannonballs were either melted down or abandoned.

The construction of the jailhouse was commissioned in tandem with the Macoupin County Courthouse project of 1867.

When it came time to hire an architect, Elijah E. Myers was fit for the job.

- E. E. Myers was a young architect out of Springfield, this was his first major commission.

He ended up becoming the only 19th century architect to design three state capitals.

- [Host] Myers would also be the one to suggest incorporating cannonballs into the jailhouse.

(ground rumbling) - It's opened in 1869, and they used it until 1988.

When you think of what a jail is like now, you look at this and you think, "How?

How did they do that?"

It's very historic.

- Well, it's gothic style, I mean- - Yeah.

- It's a beautiful building.

- Well, and it looks like a fortress.

- [Mary] It does.

- You know, it's got the tower and it has the little parapet around the roof.

- Well, it also has a hellhole too.

(Andrea chuckles) So, I mean, there's that.

- [Host] The jail ceased operations in 1988, closing out its 119 year run.

But after a few odd years of disrepair, the restoration project was taken on by Andrea and Mary.

- So we're serving on the Tourism committee together.

It was sort of a natural mix.

So, we said, "We're not doing enough.

What else can we do?"

So we just started meeting on our own and rolling it forward, doing the best that we could without permission.

(chuckles) - But we do make- - We won't do that- - We do make plans and then ask for permission, too.

- Most of the time.

(Andrea and Mary laughing) We really wanted this jail open every day from April to October.

Andrea and I, we sat and wrote and wrote, and helped them make signage, so that it could be self-guided.

So you could walk in here any day you wanted at nine o'clock by yourself, and we trust you to walk around and learn as much as you can.

So, I guess we did all that.

Sometimes, we know that's what made us so tired.

(Andrea and Mary laughing) - [Host] The work that Andrea and Mary have done for the jail is extensive, but from my brief conversation with them, it's clear that they take pride in their work.

- In a small town, you don't always have a tourism office, so there's no central point, but yet we knew how much traffic we were missing, and how many times we saw people wanting in this building, it's not that hard to put it on your agenda every day after a cup of coffee, whose turn is it to open the jail, yours or mine?

(folksy orchestral country music) - Cherokee Street is well-known for its Hispanic cuisine and bakeries, but there's one bakery that stands out for what happens after the ovens.

Since 2011, Bridge Bread Bakery has been baking up second chances, one loaf at a time.

(mellow bright orchestral music) Baking can have many purposes; it can teach patience, it can create bonds, it can be an art, a science, a way to feed the hungry, and the soul.

At Bridge Bread, it's a second chance, an ingredient for resiliency and hope.

- Our bakers and other people experiencing homelessness often blame themselves whether it was their own fault or not.

But when they walk into our kitchen and they get a sack of flour and a tub of butter and a canister full of sugar, and they make these fabulous sweet rolls and breads and everything else that you can see, and they look at what they've made and they go, "This is really good, people love this.

I made it, I can do something really good."

And they get hope again.

- [Brooke] Fred Domke and his wife, Sharon, founded Bridge Bread in 2011 to provide restorative employment and housing assistance to those without stable and safe housing.

The inspiration for Bridge Bread came after Fred and Sharon started volunteering at a shelter.

- The things that you do for folks that are in a daytime shelter or nighttime shelter programs, you know, you give them gloves and coats and you feed 'em meals, and maybe you give 'em a cot for a shelter, and set 'em up with a nurse.

And they're all wonderful, and they all make it a little bit easier for people to experience homelessness.

But after a while we said, "You know, wouldn't it be cool if we could do something that would make it easier for them to be not homeless?"

(bright lively orchestral music) - [Brooke] Now Bridge Bread is not a religious organization, but their first business model is based on selling their baked goods on consignment at churches, growing to over two dozen churches in the St.

Louis area.

- When we sell at our churches, they're setting up pop-up shops for us, 'cause we're not a bake sale, we're not the Girl Scout selling cookies, right?

This is a job, a full-time job for our bakers, and they can stay as long as they need to, after they're housed, they can stay.

- [Brooke] Mike Heeley is the Director of Bridge Bread, and Jessica Bailey-Wheaton is their Board President, and they explain the key factors that make the mission work.

- People who come off the streets who are homeless, they are thinking about that day and that day only, they're not looking to the future.

So a lot of our work here, and a lot of what Mike does, is helping them try to look to the future, and how do we do that, which is through our housing incentive program.

- [Brooke] Bridge Bread doesn't provide housing directly, but helps Bakers secure it through financial assistance that they receive through their fundraising efforts.

The program covers moving costs, deposits, and partial rent for up to six months, plus, ongoing rent support as long as they're employed.

And staying employed is only possible through their restorative employment model.

- There is a freedom and there are a set of survival rules that you learn when you're unhoused.

So, getting someone in to relearn how to be told what to do, or asked what to do, and sometimes we don't ask, sometimes we tell, and sometimes the bread tells you.

With our restorative employment model, we really try to understand that, nurture that.

And instead of just having, for example, an attendance policy that's, you know, three times when you're out, we're looking at the causes of why they're late.

(intriguing orchestral music) - [Brooke] There are other incentives and benchmarks bakers can work toward that earn them more money or other perks like free dental care.

- One of the first things that people give up when they don't have money is dental care.

We have a dentist, guy's name is Aaron Cregger, I can give him a little shout out, he has donated close to $200,000 worth of dental services to our bakers.

You like these teeth?

I paid for mine, but I got 'em from Dr.

Cregger.

- [Brooke] Bakers can stay employed for however long they want or need to.

Some choose to use their skills or resumes elsewhere, but through follow ups, Bridge Bread determines their success rate is around 75%, meaning, two-thirds of their bakers continue to stay housed.

And recently, they've updated their mission to take it even further with economic mobility, which refers to improving financial class or status, in other words, growing from surviving paycheck to paycheck to more middle class thriving.

One of their ways to do that is with a soon to be new bakery location in the loop, Teddy Key will be the manager.

- You know, I think that is the hope aspect of what we do here is, you know, people will find themselves in a hard place and they don't know how to get out of it.

And not only do we have the ability to help people get out of a pinch, but also we are committed to helping people develop their long-term plans.

- And you put some love in it.

- [Brooke] It's also worth mentioning that the bread is good.

Over the years, they've added many more menu items like cinnamon rolls, cookies, gooey butter cake.

And it's not just the hope baked in that makes it taste so good, when the Chase Park Plaza wanted to change up their dinner rolls, Bridge Bread found a solution.

- We make them using a very special formula, using a very special ingredient that we get from AB Mauri, and that partnership has been really spectacular for us.

That special ingredient is natural plant enzymes, but it makes the dough softer, it makes it taste sweeter without sugar, it makes it last longer.

But once we had that bread, I go, "Well, you know, we made cinnamon rolls with bread before, let's try making cinnamon rolls with this dough."

We did.

Every person we had 'em taste the cinnamon rolls said "That's awesome," so we call those Awesome Rolls.

- [Brooke] Their products are in grocery stores on consignment at the Soulard Farmers Market, which makes a sale every 70 seconds, in other words, the proof is in the pudding.

- Well, they say, "No, sir, don't trust a skinny baker," but (chuckles) I'm a buff baker, so... - [Brooke] Ant has been a baker for several months now and has even recruited his friend, Mickey, to work at Bridge Bread.

- He talked about this place, and I was like, I was really interested, and he also talked about all the benefits of working here.

They're very flexible, they're very lenient, they're really patient with you.

- Well, this is an opportunity for you to, you know, find purpose without judgment.

There's a lot what goes along with homelessness, or a fall.

A person gets discouraged and don't wanna get back up and wonders what other people think of them, because of those handouts.

But this is not that.

Most of the time, you get discouraged because all you feel like is people only give you handouts.

And since I've been here, this is the first time I've felt like somebody gave me a hand-up.

♪ And I, I pray ♪ That this works ♪ Amen on behalf of the last and the least ♪ ♪ On behalf of the anxious, depressed, and unseen ♪ ♪ Amen for the workers, the hungry, the houseless ♪ ♪ Amen for the lonely and recently spouseless ♪ ♪ Amen for the queers and their closeted peers ♪ ♪ Amen for the bullied who hold in their tears ♪ ♪ Amen for the mothers of little Black sons ♪ ♪ Amen - I'm Veronica Mohesky.

Today, I'm here with Jody Sowell, President of the Missouri Historical Society.

And, today, we're going to talk about a rather tall tale.

- If St.

Louis could introduce itself, it would say, "I'm the place that defined what a skyscraper should look like."

The Wainwright Building opens in 1891 in downtown St.

Louis on Chestnut.

It is not in fact the first skyscraper in the United States, but it does become the model for every skyscraper afterwards.

Frank Lloyd Wright talks about, "This is the model for every tall, steel office structure that comes after," PBS names it one of the 10 buildings that changed America.

It's certainly beautiful, but it was also its strong, vertical columns that accentuated its height and made it look even taller than its 10 stories that are really what make it so important, not just in architecture history, but American history.

- Absolutely.

Well, thank you, Jody.

- Welcome.

- I talked to Andrew Wanko to learn more about this historic building.

- You know, you walk past the Wainwright Building in downtown today, and I imagine most people have no idea they're walking past something of any importance.

- [Veronica] That's Andrew Wanko, a Public Historian at the Missouri Historical Society.

- It was never even the tallest building in St.

Louis when it was built in 1891.

The old courthouse just down the street is actually taller than the Wainwright Building.

So how could it possibly be the first skyscraper not even just in St.

Louis, but anywhere in the world?

- [Veronica] But the height of this 10 story building isn't what makes it notable.

- It didn't just soar, it taught all other buildings how to soar.

- [Veronica] In the late 1800s, downtown real estate was extremely valuable, but St.

Louis was running out of space.

- If you could build your building up higher, you could get a lot more building for a lot less money.

So all this new technology that was coming out at the time, things like elevators that could carry people up to floors high in the sky, steel frames that let the exterior walls of buildings essentially hang off the frame like a curtain, they no longer had to bear all that weight of the structure.

You could build buildings theoretically as tall as you wanted to, but architects really struggled with what to do with these new really tall buildings.

And in 1891, Architect Louis Sullivan would provide that on 7th Street in downtown St.

Louis.

Louis Sullivan was a Chicago architect who absolutely poured every ounce of his energy into solving the problem of the skyscraper, coming up with a new form that these tall buildings could take.

And on the Wainwright Building, that's where all of his ideas came together in a huge new way.

- [Veronica] The building was for the Wainwright Brewing Company.

The owners planned to rent out unused floors to other businesses.

Sullivan came up with a unique design for the project by looking at Greek and Roman temples.

- [Andrew] He looked at the columns and realized they were made of three very simple parts; He had a base at the bottom, a shaft in the middle that could rise as tall as you needed it to, and then the capital on top was this explosion of decoration.

- [Veronica] This decoration is now called Sullivanesque design, and it earned him praise and distinction.

- He interlaced these geometric patterns with leafy, vegetative motifs.

It was a totally new form of decoration for a new American architecture, and really set this new kind of moment in motion when all of a sudden you had all of these other architects realizing this is the new path to take.

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, easily one of the most famous American architects of all time, was actually working in Sullivan's office at the time the Wainwright Building was going up, and later said that that was one of the most important moments, not just of Sullivan's practice, but of his own, seeing an idea like that come to life in a huge new way.

- [Veronica] The building was completed in 1891.

- So the Wainwright Building, he would refer to as the single moment in his career, from that point forward, all other buildings he designed would point back to the Wainwright Building as their sort of common source.

Louis Sullivan became known as the Father of Skyscrapers, and did more than any other American architect to define what a skyscraper should look like.

- [Veronica] And despite its historical significance, the building was almost imploded in the 1970s to make way for a parking lot.

- Luckily, a campaign from the American Institute of Architects and the Landmarks Association of St.

Louis came to its rescue.

They fought for years to get the Wainwright Building saved, and ultimately that's what happened, in the late 1970s, the state of Missouri revived the building into a State Office building, which it was for the next handful of decades.

- [Veronica] And while we might not call it a skyscraper today, the building is an important piece of architectural history.

- It's a drift in a sea of its own offspring.

Every other tall building in downtown St.

Louis, but also around the country, can point back to it as a common reference point, and I think that's what's so incredible about it.

It's really a hidden gem right there in the open.

(bright enchanting orchestral music) (bright jazzy orchestral music) - And that's "Living St.

Louis."

When's your favorite time to come down Cherokee Street?

The jazz crawl, print bazaar, Cinco de Mayo?

We love hearing from you.

Let us know at NinePBS.org/LSL.

I'm Brooke Butler, thanks for joining us.

(jazzy orchestral upbeat music) (jazzy orchestral upbeat music continues) (jazzy orchestral upbeat music continues) (jazzy orchestral upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] "Living St.

Louis" is funded in part by the Betsy & Thomas Patterson Foundation and the members of Nine PBS.