Many of the incorporations in St. Louis county occurred in the years following WW2, especially in response to new fair housing and anti-segregation laws being passed. County munis incorporated to adopt their own zoning and housing codes.
There are the handful of historic County munis along old rail lines, places like Ferguson, Florissant, Webster Grove and Kirkwood; those incorporations dating to the late 1800s.
But Shrewsbury's a bit odd. It incorporated in 1913. I wonder why? In 1913 Shrewsbury was a nothing place; most of its buildings date to 1930 and beyond. Practically no commercial areas, so minimal tax base. Can anyone explain the motivation for a 1913 date of incorporation for Shrewsbury?
Some of the buildings that formed the center of town, as it was, were destroyed by the construction of Interstate 44. Not many of the buildings that existed then survive today. The original wooden St. Michael the Archangel parish and school were established in 1895 and 1897, respectively; the present stone church was built in the 1930s. The original church stood behind where the 1930s building stands.
The original Kenrick Seminary (what is now the Cardinal Rigali Center) was started in 1913, the year of Shrewsbury's incorporation, and completed in 1915. The archdiocese obviously played a big part in Shrewsbury's development.
Shrewsbury had its own train depot around the turn of the century - 56 trains a day passed through ($0.06 fare). A grocery store - Zipfel's food store - stood near present-day Shrewsbury Avenue, north of where I-44 is. There was also a beer garden - Ebner's Beer Garden - in what was the center of town near the depot, site of the present-day I-44 interchange with Shrewsbury Ave. I don't know the year that was built, but Ebner's grocery store was on the south side of the tracks in the 1910s. St Mary's Episcopal church and a Methodist church were nearby as well. There were other buildings that housed businesses but many details of those are lost. There was a printing business and likely other businesses supporting farmers. The first city hall was built in 1912 and was used as a gathering place on the weekends, especially Saturday nights.
The earliest residents prior to incorporation lived on large farms which were later subdivided. I'm not sure how many "century houses" existed at the time but you can pretty much pick them out driving around today. The main subdivision was platted in the late 1800s; Shrewsbury derives its name from Shrewsbury Park, one of the stops on the train ride out to "the country," named by real estate developers Farrar and Tate. It was a stop on the way out to [what is now] Webster Groves and beyond.
Incidentally, electric street lights were added in 1915, and until 1943 police officers used their own personal vehicles to patrol the city. Present-day Murdoch Avenue was at the time part of the Ozark Indian Trail and was paved in the early 1920s. The original developers commissioned composers to create the Shrewsbury Waltz to entice visitors to come check out Shrewsbury Park (the song was resurrected in 2013 for the city's centennial). Lots in Shrewsbury Park cost $100.
So, Shrewsbury Park existed prior to Webster Groves; when several communities unified and incorporated to create what we call Webster Groves today, Shrewsbury Park was left on its own, sandwiched between WG and St. Louis City.
In short, Shrewsbury is not so much a a slice off of Webster or a holdout as it was a small area left over neighboring areas incorporated themselves. It incorporated for the same relatively mundane reason that Webster did - to have autonomy over improving its infrastructure and quality of life.
True. I guess I was implying that there wasn't something more scandalous going on - like incorporating to prevent low-income housing or something (although early advertisements for Shrewsbury Park did say they were looking for "good people").
