Garment District

The Garment District was St. Louis's wholesale and apparel quarter, a corridor of tall brick and terra-cotta lofts along Washington Avenue from 9th Street west to 18th. Beginning in the 1890s, wholesale houses moved west from the riverfront and built salesrooms and factories here for dry goods, shoes, hats and clothing, among them Ely and Walker, Ferguson-McKinney, Roberts, Johnson and Rand, Carruthers-Jones and Curlee. Shoe and garment makers made the street one of the country's busiest manufacturing districts through the middle of the 20th century, before the trade dispersed after the 1960s and many buildings stood empty. Nearly all of the lofts survive, protected by two National Register districts listed in 1986 and 1987, and most have been converted to apartments, hotels and offices.