Jacob Steins House

Photo by Jennifer Roques, 2009

Jacob Steins House - Circa 184o's

While out walking around the neighborhood to take photos I made sure to walk down to Jacob Steins old home. The house is settled on a rise overlooking the river and within easy access to the bank. It's neighbors are an old abandoned industry building, Frenchies Auto Parts (Settled nicely between two extremely old farm houses), and a few old row house apartment buildings.

I took my photo and started to walk back when I was approached by a man and he asked me "Why are you taking pictures of that house?"

I told him about my love of the neighborhood and history and how I had read about this house.

"Well, Wanna see the inside? I fixed it all up!" He smiled.

His name is Al, and he lives in the Jacob Stein house and has for years.

He is also the owner of Frenchies Auto parts, and is the landlord for the apartments on the street, (which ALL of them are rented out, he informs me).

Inside the house is comfy and Al's TV has a basketball game on.

He shows us around and tells of all the renovations he has made and points out old photos of his family. The kitchen cabinets are about 40 years old, but don't look a day over year. He has put a lot of time and work into cleaning the place up. He shows us a photo of Mr. Jacob Stein that the Carondelet Historical Society has given him. Mr. Stein is a portly man in a button down vest and jacket, perched on a chair and holding his walkin stick.

Al then takes us up stairs and is excited to show us the beautifully redone woodwork and steps(all done by him). The second floor is also nicely redone with the dormers back open and in working condition. He tells us of a fire that happened in the building during the 1950's. When he went to renovate the roof all the damage that had happened became apparent. "They are lucky this place didn't fall down on them!" He states. As we go around to each dormer, Al points out each different factory along the riverfront and tells me what they do, as well as how to get down to river from the railroad tracks.

Jacob Stein was an important citizen to Carondelet. He served as an immigration agent and built "Steins Row" (1840) which is now on the National Register of Historic Places. His home also served as the Immigration Office. Thousands and thousands of German immigrants passed through his office after docking at the old stone pier that is still at the Mississippi today.

With all this traffic, I'm sure that travellers needed some rest and spirits, so they opened a bar in the back of the home as early as 1850. Al took us to the bar which has had many additions throughout the years. Yet the original bar remains. With a slightly non-proportionate S-shape to it, the bar has a lot of space. The back was accessible from the back of the home, and a mud porch connected the two structures. While Al was doing some renovations he knocked down a wall to reveal, not one, but two other entries from the house into the bar back. The original yellow painted paneling still surrounded the door frames. "They must've done some business!"

Al was happy to share with us his hard work of restoring this house. I'm glad he did, the inside is beautiful and one can tell the amount of care that was put into it.

He also informed me that he is selling his auto parts business and his apartments, I'm not too sure when this is going to happen, or what will happen to them.

Jacob Steins House - At the intersection of Steins St and Reilly Ave

History Summary:

In 1843, Jacob Stein, a German immigrant agent, acquired a lot at the southeast corner of Steins and Reilly Streets. He was so impressed by the opportunities in Carondelet that he persuaded many other Rhineland Germans to come there. Some of them later became prominent in the life of the community and gave their names to streets in what came to be known as Stein´s Town, south of old Vide Poche. These names exist today on Krauss, Schirmer, Koeln, Nagel, Espenschied and other streets in the area.
The small stone houses that can still be seen in this section of Carondelet are reminiscent of these German settlers. Many of them started small factories which spread in later years to create a highly industrialized part of the town.
Stein resided in the house at Steins and Reilly in the period before the Civil War. Examples of other limestone houses built by German immigrants during the 1840s and 1850s can be seen on Stein´s Street, west of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Source