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Joplin's St. Louis Home desgnated a landmarkBy Charles J. Oswald, Globe-Democrat Staff Writer A dilapidated, garbage-littered St. Louis slum building, that served briefly as black composer Scott Joplin's home here, has been designated as a national historic landmark by the U.S. Department of Interior. The two-family brick structure at 2658A Delmar Bl. (formerly 2658A Morgan Ave.) is among 33 sites associated with famous black Americans to be designated as national landmarks, it was announced in Washington Thursday. THE SELECTION study for the National Park Service by the nonprofit Afro-American Bicentennial Corp. was headed by two brothers, Robert A. and Vincent A. DeForrest, and composed of 24 scholars. It began research on site selection in 1972. Robert DeForrest, contacted by The Globe-Democrat in Washington, said that, to the best of his knowledge, Joplin lived in the upstairs flat briefly about the turn of the century, when his music first became popular. Joplin's home in St. Louis, at 2117 Lucas Ave. has long since been torn down. [About two sentences missing due to paper deterioration] THE OWNER of the side of the apartment house where Joplin is said to have lived could not be immediately determined. The exact apartment where the musician is believed to have lived was padlocked, when a Globe-Democrat reporter when there Thursday. However, there was a dog on the back porch, indicating that the apartment may be occupied. The first floor apartment, directly below, at 2658 Delmar, was open. The interior was a shambles of filth, broken furniture, discarded clothing and the odor of garbage. Fireplaces in the living room and bedroom of the four-room apartment had been torn out and bricked up. The plumbing also was missing and in its place was a hole leading to the darkened basement. A huge mound of garbage, debris, empty milk containers and trash filled the kitchen area of the downstairs apartment, where it had been dropped through a hole in the ceiling leading to the Joplin apartment. ELECTRICAL WIRING had been ripped away. Windows were smashed and boarded up in the apartment and all but the second-floor landing of the back porch had been torn or rotted away. If Joplin lived in the apartment in 1900, it was shortly after he arrived here from Sedalia, Mo., along with his music publisher, John Stark. Joplin's composition "Maple Leaf Rag," to which he sold the royalties to Stark in 1899 for $50, had become extremely popular at that time. Long after Joplin's death, on April 1, 1917, his music was to become popular again in the recent movie "The Sting." At the time he may have lived at the Delmar address, Joplin was earning his living playing the piano at Tom Turpin's Rosebud Cafe on Marked Street in the old Mill Creek Valley area. HIS OTHER HAUNT was the Chestnut Valley section of the city, running along the levee. DeForrest said designation as a landmark quallifies the owner to apply, through his congressman, for one or more of four grant aids to rehabilitate the building. He also may ask money from the state for reconstruction. The first step is to fill out an application for a bronze marker from the National Park Service, he said. Despite the decayed condition fo the building, DeForrest said, "it certainly qualifies . . . it has the highest designation," adding, "Most of the sites associated with famous black artists, musicians, writers and scholars are in bad repair." WHEN ASKED if they had ever heard of Scott, Joplin, several pedestrians stopped on the street in front of the Joplin apartment shook their heads and said, "I don't know anybody with that name." John Purvis, 81, who lives in the Poulin side of the crumbling building, said the building wasn't a bad place to live, "'cept the roof leaks at times." It came as a surprise to him that Scott Joplin once lived next door. He produced a rent receipt for $30 a month from the Poulin Real Estate Co. David Poulin, owner of half the building, seemed excited that it had been made a landmark. "We had the building up for sale," he said, adding, "You want to buy it?"
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