A large brick dormitory of about 23,000 square feet on North 14th Street. As first built it was crowned by a cupola, with a two-story window at the center of the main front and a round-topped cornice; those features were lost over the following century.
Bryan Mullanphy, mayor of St. Louis in 1847–48, left part of his fortune to aid emigrants passing through the city, and the Mullanphy Emigrant Relief Fund paid for most of this home. George I. Barnett and Alfred H. Piquenard designed it in 1867, and it cost $30,000. Within six months it had sheltered nearly a thousand travelers, giving them beds, medical care, clothing and help finding work. By 1877 the flow of emigrants had slowed and the building became a school. Later it housed the Absorene Manufacturing Company, makers of a wallpaper cleaner. Storms on April 2, 2006 brought down much of the south wall. The Old North St. Louis Restoration Group took over the building and, with donated labor from E.M. Harris Construction and the Masonry Contractors Association, stabilized and partly rebuilt it. The group sold it in October 2018 to an owner who planned a community center or hotel, but no work followed, and later storms caused more damage. The owner applied to demolish it in May 2023. Before the Preservation Board could hear the request, the building burned on September 14, 2023, and the ruins were cleared.
