The second annual meeting of the Missouri Chapter of the American Institute of Architects was held at the Mercantile Club in St. Louis on January 13, 1891. After the reading of minutes of the last annual meeting by the Secretary Alfred F. Rosenheim, President Theodore C. Link (1850- 1923) began his address to the assembly as follows:

GENTLEMEN: While this is our first convention as a duly organized chapter of the American Institute of Architects, we meet as practically the same body which has now for the past six years gathered annually in the different cities of our state. We retain under our new name the same aims and objects which called into existence the original state association, and, I am sorry to observe, we have retained also the same old slimness of attendance which has characterized many of our previous gatherings. Now, I have often caught myself wondering why architects as a species seem to avoid such meetings as these, and the most charitable construction which I am able to find for this apparent lack of esprit de corps is the fact of a constant necessity to keep one's nose well down to the grindstone year in and year out. We want to be friendly and brotherly and even have a good time once a year; but we must keep that pencil sharpened or what would the man think who should find us out of town just on the very day he is all ready to start that $2,000 house he has been talking about for four years?

Today, the Secretary of the floundering Missouri Chapter, Alfred F. Rosenheim, is only remembered by those fascinated with the history of St. Louis architecture. Very few have ever heard of another one of the twelve attendees at the January 1891 meeting George U. Heimburger. Nevertheless, the buildings designed by Link, Rosenheim and Heimburger are links to our collective past. The three men are among the many St. Louis architects who designed houses in the Compton Heights subdivision that opened in 1890. For examples of their work as well as brief biographies, see Landmarks Association's publication Compton Heights.

All information and illustrations on these pages
are from the collections of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis, Inc.
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