Maxwelton Race Track Wellston Missouri (St. Louis, Berkeley: houses, school, live)

[aliasfinn]

Some interesting stories about that racetrack/gangster hangout on the Rock Road.
I would have loved to explored that place when it existed. I found another website on stltoday gallery that had more pictures of the Maxwelton Club and William Colbeck and Egan's Rats but the link wouldn't work for me. This one should.

Wellston_Maxwelton_Race_Track

[BerkeleyKid]

Cool. I didn't even know about that racetrack once being in the Rock Road area. I have a Granny buried in the cemetery there. I'll have to read more about it. Interesting read. Thanks for posting.

[aliasfinn]

Originally Posted by BerkeleyKid

Cool. I didn't even know about that racetrack once being in the Rock Road area. I have a Granny buried in the cemetery there. I'll have to read more about it. Interesting read. Thanks for posting.

I too have some relatives buried in those cemeteries.
I used to spend a lot of time around Wellston but these days only go a couple of times a year when I go to the junk yard. I dug up some more info about Wellston from Wikipedia.
Total area 0.93 miles (all of it land)
It was named after Erastus Wells (1823-1893)
Incorporated as a city in 1909
Dissolved in 1912 due to " government difficulties " (I wonder what that was all about? )
Reestablished as a city in 1949
The two main companies there were Wagner Electric which employed 4,500 people during WW1 and Abex Steel Foundry, both gone by 1983 which pretty much put a knife in the heart of Wellston.
Estimated population today is about 2300.
Even the two pictures on Wikipedia looks like a ghost town now.

Wellston, Missouri - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[flynavyj]

I used to go through Wellston on a regular basis as a kid during the late 80's and early 90's. My greatgrandmother lived near there and it was on her way to church.

Oddly, a classmate/friend of mine throughout gradeschool shared his great grandfather's name (William Colbeck). When my grandmother heard who was in my class, she was like "Billy? The gangster?" was a humorous conversation, brought it up with him just after to which he responded that yes, his grandfather (or great grandfather) was a gangster. Apparently they used to frequent a club that my grandmother ran for a while...fun times in St. Louis apparently.

[aliasfinn]

Originally Posted by flynavyj

I used to go through Wellston on a regular basis as a kid during the late 80's and early 90's. My greatgrandmother lived near there and it was on her way to church.

Oddly, a classmate/friend of mine throughout gradeschool shared his great grandfather's name (William Colbeck). When my grandmother heard who was in my class, she was like "Billy? The gangster?" was a humorous conversation, brought it up with him just after to which he responded that yes, his grandfather (or great grandfather) was a gangster. Apparently they used to frequent a club that my grandmother ran for a while...fun times in St. Louis apparently.

Here is some more info on William " Dinty " Colbeck along with pictures including the Maxwelton Club.


Look Back: William "Dinty" Colbeck : Gallery

[BerkeleyKid]

Now that I think back about it, you might be on to something as to Wellston being shady. I'm old school StL so my memories of Wellston are a few during the late 1950's as a VERY young girl as my family would drive thru Wellston while crossing from North to South County to visit family before the interstate 70/55 highway system. I remember there being streetcar tracks in the roadway. I remember one house having a giant cement cast head of a President/Lincoln? in it's front yard. lol. I even faintly remember chickens hanging from the rafters outside under the front porch of a store or some sort of business. But, I guess my main memory of Wellston was when we were told "roll up the windows and lock the doors". That was considered a bad area back then.

[aliasfinn]

Yeah, It's always been a " lock the doors " area as long as I can remember.
Once, I was driving down a dead end street near a scrap metal place and had to slam on my brakes because of this hole in the road. This thing was huge, I had to get out of my truck to investigate. It looked like a meteorite hit there. It was about five feet in diameter and maybe 10 feet deep and the only way someone could drive around it was to cut thru somebody's yard. Most of the houses were vacant but there were still a few folks that lived down at the end.

[aliasfinn]

I saw on the news tonight that someone torched some of those empty houses.
I guess those flashing lights were more entertaining than that Rams game.
If they're going to burn something they should just burn all those weeds around there.