The First District station is a symmetrical two-story building faced in smooth limestone ashlar over a polished granite base, its manner a restrained Art Deco reading of classical form. Fluted pilasters divide the front into bays, and a shallow central pediment carries the Missouri state seal — two bears flanking a shield beneath the motto "United We Stand, Divided We Fall." Carved medallions of pinwheel petals sit beneath the tall windows, and a carved "POLICE STATION" panel marks the raised central entrance. A frieze of stars and chevrons runs along the parapet, and stylized Deco lamp standards flank the door. A tall lattice communications tower rises from the roof.
The First District Police Station opened in 1931 on Holly Hills Avenue in the Carondelet section of far south St. Louis, one of the district houses of the city's police force. Its cornerstone credits the architects Klipstein & Rathmann and the Metropolitan Police Department — the name St. Louis's force carried while it was governed by a state-appointed Board of Police Commissioners, an arrangement that lasted from 1861 until the city regained local control in 2013. Built of limestone in a stripped, Deco-inflected classical manner and crowned with the Missouri state seal, it is a far grander building than the small brick district stations the city put up a few years later in the 1930s. As the department consolidated its districts into larger patrol divisions, the station was left behind; it stands vacant today, a communications tower still rising from its roof.
