The Ferdinand Herold mansion on Jefferson Ave in the Benton Park West neighborhood was built in 1889 in the Romanesque Revival style for Herold, who owned the Cherokee Brewery which was located only a short distance away on Cherokee, near the intersection with Ohio. Herold had lived on Chouteau Ave previously in the 1870s, and moved further south to be closer to his Brewery. Herold really liked the name Cherokee, as he owned a tobacco company and a steamboat company that were also named Cherokee. He also had a Cherokee Indian head engraved above the entryway to the house. The brewery was bought out by Ellis Wainwright’s St. Louis Brewing Association and it was closed a few years later when the SLBA was streamlined. Herold died in 1911, and around the same time, the area had become more of a working class streetcar district, as the streetcars on Jefferson would pass right by the house. The area was booming with business into the late 20th century, but eventually fell into decline by the 1980s, as many of the older neighborhoods to the east had experienced in the decades prior. However in the late 2000s and early 2010s, this area saw a lot of revitalization, which brought new life to the Cherokee business district. Today this house is occupied, and remains as one of the largest houses in the area, and one of the only examples of a Romanesque Revival style.
Older photos by William G. Swekosky, 1939