This house in the Benton Park West neighborhood is one of the oldest surviving settlements in the area, dating to 1853. One indicator of its early construction is the shape of the windows, which do not feature an arch at the top, as is seen beginning in the late 1850s and early 1860s. Another unique feature to the house is that it follows the original topography of the land, whereas the surrounding houses built about 40 years later had the land flattened along the street level. In 1875, the street (Oregon) which it sits on today was not yet laid out, and the area was very rural. The land in most of South St. Louis that lies within the 1855 city limits at Grand, was purchased by German settlers who were drawn to the area for the cheap prices that the land was being sold for, as Soulard and Lafayette Square became more expensive. By the 1890s, the surrounding area began to fill in with urban development as the neighborhood was serviced by streetcar lines at Gravois, Jefferson, and Cherokee. The area stayed in relatively good shape while older neighborhoods like Soulard fell into disrepair, but it began to experience decline in the 1990s as many other neighborhoods started to see revitalization. However, an influx of Mexican immigrants in the early 2000s has stabilized the area to some extent, and most of the historic buildings including this early period home are still occupied.
Settlers Home on the 1875 Compton and Dry map