`There are places I’ll remember
All my life
Though some have changed.’
— “In My Life”
— The Beatles
Going back to a town that holds memories from one’s past is a risky business: The place might have changed so much that it invalidates the recollection. On the other hand, it might not have changed at all and would disappoint because it seems frozen in time.
That’s why I was nervous about taking my husband and two of our children to St. Charles, Mo., for a weekend — 20 years after leaving the close-knit community for life as a journalist in the big city. I wanted my family to see the place as I’d seen it, but I wasn’t sure the tranquil St. Charles of my memories existed. Reports of explosive growth and a tourist boom hovered in my mind.
St. Charles is 300 miles and five hours away from Chicago, just across the Missouri River from St. Louis County. It is the oldest town on the river, founded in 1769 by French Canadian fur trader Louis Blanchette. But St. Charles is best known as the site of Missouri’s First State Capitol, the Lewis and Clark Rendezvous and the starting point of Boone’s Lick Trail and the Zebulon Pike Expedition.
For most of the 20th Century, St. Charles was a farming area cum home port for people who worked in St. Louis. Today it is a vacation destination for people who want to bike or hike the KATY Trail, browse the quaint shops along Main Street, test their luck in the casinos or just soak up the area’s rich history.
Interstate Highway 70 bisects St. Charles, and it is virtually a dividing line between old and new: North of I-70 things have changed very little in 20 years; South of I-70 west to St. Peters looks like a Gold Rush town full of retail and food chains.
We chose to stay at the St.Charles/St. Peters Holiday Inn (kids stay and eat free, and it has a pool), a short ride from our first stop, Main Street. The street itself is paved in brick and flanked by gaslights and buildings in a variety of architectural styles (French colonial, Federal and a French-German hybrid). It is here, along the riverfront, that St. Charles began as a staging area for explorers, traders and immigrants going West, and it is here that it emerged as a boom town of the ’90s.
We started our “back to the future” visit with breakfast at Cafe Le Claire, a 3-month-old restaurant in a restored 1910 house. We relaxed on the cafe’s lovely brick patio over buckwheat waffles and Texas omelets while we watched Main Street awaken (and the tour buses arrive).
When I lived in St. Charles, dining choices were sparse. Now, tourism has sparked a feeding frenzy. Main Street alone has several dining spots, including the Winery of the Little Hills, an indoor-outdoor spot with an active winery; the Trailhead Brewing Co., a boisterous brewpub serving trendy American food; and the older St. Charles Vintage House at the far south end of the street, where diners can watch the river from its steeply terraced wine garden. Others, like the 43-year-old Pio’s, are away from the tourist haven and still draw the locals with low prices and incomparable pizza and toasted ravioli.
After breakfast we crossed the street and headed for the St. Charles Visitors’ Center, just in time for a tour of the First State Capitol building next door. This is where farmers, trappers and merchants sat at primitive green baize-covered desks and wrote the first Missouri laws in rooms above Peck’s hardware store. Downstairs, replicas of the store and a family living area acquaint visitors with such artifacts as tallow candles, lye soap, rope beds and a strange-looking table that flips into a chair, a contraption designed to help settlers avoid anti-gambling taxes on tables that seated more than two people.
With the day’s history lesson out of the way, it was time for the important stuff — shopping. Main Street is ideal for those who frequent arts and crafts shops, and the browsing possibilities expand each third full weekend in August when the Fete des Petites Cotes (Festival of the Little Hills) draws more than 300 crafters and 300,000 visitors. During that weekend, Main Street overflows into adjoining Frontier Park along the riverfront, also home to the Goldenrod Showboat and the KATY Trail Head. This year the 27th Fete, which celebrates the area’s French and German heritage and 19th Century history, crafts, music and food, will be Aug. 21-23.
Even if you don’t make the festival, you can get a feel for Main Street’s personality by visiting the shops. One art gallery, And Everything Nice, has a magnificent collection of Native American art and sculpture; a few doors south, another gallery worth a visit is Reflections of Missouri, which features art from the region, past and present. In fact, all the street’s shops are tempting: There’s Cliff’s Custom Cut-outs (handcrafted wood gifts); Holiday House (Christmas and holiday gifts); Olde Town Spice Shoppe (spices, jellies, potpourri); Raining Cats and Dogs (feline and canine gifts) and the Bear Factory (collectible bears and hares).
Main Street isn’t the only section of St. Charles steeped in history. the nearby Frenchtown neighborhood is a 25-block registered historic district noted for its French Colonial architecture and antique shops. However, antiquing here and on Main Street is disappointing because many dealers now show their wares in the huge St. Charles Antique Mall 3 miles south of I-70 on Missouri Highway 94.
We made the most of our Frenchtown antiquing disappointment by taking in the magnificent Academy of the Sacred Heart, founded in 1818 by St. Rose Philippine Duchesne, who was canonized in 1988. The academy was the first free school west of the Mississippi River, and its gated, parklike campus includes the original convent and school as well as the 1883 chapel with beautiful stained glass tableaux and a shrine to Duchesne. The shrine is open from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. daily.
A driving tour of outlying St. Charles County sites was on our list for Day Two. We headed south on Missouri 94, keeping our eyes open for a place to have breakfast, and found that –and more–in Defiance about 15 miles from St. Charles. At the corner of Missouri 94 and Defiance Road sits Dave and Jacquie’s, a local bar and grill that serves up great sausage and eggs and lively conversation about crop prices and city folks movin’ into town. But there’s a big surprise in the back yard — Das Gast House Nadler.
Dave and Jacquie Nadler’s bed and breakfast is a beautifully restored 1918 farmhouse that belonged to Dave’s grandparents. Each of the four guest rooms features a queen-sized bed and private entrance from the wraparound veranda. There is a hot tub in the sun room, an aerie, an exercise room and breakfast made from eggs laid by chickens in the barn out back.
If you feel like hitting the KATY Trail, a 223-mile-long linear state park for bikers and hikers along the old MKT rail bed, you can walk across the street to KATY Bike Rental. It rents mountain bikes, kid bikes and even two-seaters and has direct access to the trail, which reopened three years ago after being wiped out by the Flood of ’93.
From there, drive along Missouri 94 or bike the KATY to one of several wineries.
One of the newer enterprises, Sugar Creek Winery in Defiance, is owned by Melrose Park native Ken Miller and his wife, Becky. The Millers started the winery in 1994 and offer cheese and sausage to complement their wine, served in the tasting room or on the terrace just steps from the vineyard.
A find: While looking for wineries, we came upon Martha’s Ville Antiques, a delightful collection displayed in the barn behind Martha and Ted Munnecke’s homestead at the century-old Tamunn Farm in Marthasville (actually it’s the last house on Missouri 94 in St. Charles County), where we found a sure-fire antique fishing lure and an old corkscrew for our collections.
Our last stop on the way back to town was the Daniel Boone Home in Defiance. The tour is more than two hours long, but we learned about the Boone family and its place in American history, plus we saw original Boone belongings.
Although many St. Charles landmarks have changed, “some forever, not for better” as the song goes, “some are gone and some remain.” And there is enough of both old and new in St. Charles for everyone.
IF YOU GO
– GETTING THERE
By car: Take Interstate Highway 57 south to Effingham and Interstate Highway 70; continue about 35 miles west to Interstate Highway 270 to skirt St. Louis traffic. I-270 rejoins I-70 near Lambert St. Louis International Airport. Cross the I-70 bridge and exit at First Capitol (Missouri Highway 94) for Main Street or Cave Springs Road for St. Peters.
By air: Airfare can be as low as $50 roundtrip (Southwest, TWA), and Lambert St. Louis International Airport is just seven miles east of St. Charles.
– LODGING
Holiday Inn Select-St. Charles/St. Peters (4221 S. Outer Road., Exit 225 off I-70; 314-928-1500). Two hundred rooms, Holidome, restaurant, lounge.
Das Gast Haus Nadler, Defiance, (125 Defiance Road, Defiance, Mo.; 314-987-2200). Four guest rooms, with queen beds and full breakfast. $90 per weekend night; $70 during the week.
– DINING
Cafe Le Claire (325 S. Main Street.; 314-940-2332).
Trailhead Brewing Co. (921 S. Riverside Dr.; 314 946-2739).
St. Charles Vintage House Restaurant and Wine Garden (1219 S. Main; 314-946-7155).
Winery of the Little Hills (501 S. Main St.; 314-946-9339)
Pio’s (401 First Capitol Dr.; 314-724-5919).
– SITES
Daniel Boone Home (1868 State Highway F, six miles west of Defiance; 314-987-2221).
Sugar Creek Winery (125 Boone Country Lane, Defiance; 314-987-2400).
KATY Trail (Missouri Dept. of Natural Resources; 800-334-6946).
First Missouri State Capitol State Historic Site (200-216 S. Main St.; 314-946-9282).
– INFORMATION
Greater St. Charles Convention and Visitors Bureau, 230 S. Main St., 314-946-7776.
