What Happens When Your Hometown Becomes a National Park?

[Sedalia Dave]

Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, holds the key to a part of America’s forgotten past

 

 

Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, is a quaint small town, but it holds one of the largest collections of French colonial architecture in the United States. It’s also home to a number of well-preserved log cabins (below), several of which were built in the 18th century.

 

 

STE. GENEVIEVE, Missouri—Nobody knows how many people are buried in the old cemetery here. Estimates go as high as 5,000—more than the city’s current population. There are French traders, former slaves and their former owners, the daughter of a Native American chief, German immigrants, the victims of a Mississippi River steamboat explosion, peasants, and at least one wily politician, all crammed into a single block.

By the mid-1800s, grave diggers were sticking their shovels into what they thought was fresh earth and hitting bones. By 1881, they stopped digging altogether. Now the cemetery is a place where people gather pecans in the fall.

The same sort of thing happened with houses the traders and immigrants lived in—log cabins built in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nobody knows how many are still standing—estimates range from 40 to 90—because over the years they were made to look like any other kind of house, wrapped in weatherproof vinyl siding, topped with an extra story, fitted with plumbing and electricity, and punctured with new windows. Some people don’t realize they’re living in a 200-year-old cabin until they pull down the drywall and see the trimmed trunks of trees. “We keep getting surprised,” says local historian Robert Mueller.

 

[Sedalia Dave]

Fire-Damaged Bernier House Rises Phoenix-Like From Ashes

 

Details and pictures of some of the more unique Construction Techniques known as poteaux-sur-solle construction.

 

How would you like to dig into the walls of your house and find this under the plaster???

[Shawnee McGrutt]

Seems, like half of the state of Maine has just been turned into a National Park.

I don't know if I like it. I think not.

[Tennessee Trapper Tom]

The house I live in looks just like the picture you show when you remove the paneling. My house was built sometime in the 1890s. I like it that over 120 years of use has come to this place.

[J-BAR #18287]

Ste. Genevieve used to be famous as a no-tolerance speed trap. No telling how many tourists contributed to the town's coffers with fines for being a couple of miles per hour over the limit.

 

I have avoided it for years.

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

I know the place well. Lots of French Settler foot prints there.

When George Rogers Clark captured Ft. Kaskaskia it was

full of French settlers, and right across the river from St. Genevieve.

That whole area was settled by French and later German immigrants.

IIRC They have a or had a French celebration around New Years where

the town was in french costume of the days of Colonial Times.

Also, Ft. de Chartres is just across the river on the Illinois side. It is a

partially restored stone fort that the French built. Each year they

have a rendezvous with french troops parading the fort grounds.

[Calamity Kris]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing, Sedalia Dave.