As the end of the 19th century neared, St. Louis had expanded west to the doorsteps of Kingsbury Farm.  On its southeastern edge a huge city park had been developed, which was dedicated in 1876 as Forest Park.  Concurrent with Forest Park's dedication, the City-County boundary was established just beyond the park's western edge, taking the larger part of Kingsbury Farm into the county. To the north and to the east there was considerable residential building, including several fine private neighborhoods just east of DeBaliviere.  In 1895 Robert S. Brookings chose land just south of Kingsbury Farm and west of Forest Park as the new home of Washington University.  Kingsbury Farm had not yet garnered the same eager interest by prospective owners and businessmen, no doubt largely due to the meandering course of the River Des Peres through the property.  With higher ground to the west, heavy rains routinely caused the River des Peres to overflow its banks.  What was to become Parkview was part of a natural flood plain. 

Then came plans for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and the prospect that the fair might be sited in the undeveloped western portion of Forest Park.  The surrounding areas of open farmland were furiously scrutinized by businessmen who visualized the profits that could be theirs if they could develop it to handle the crowds that would be attending the fair.  Seizing on this prospect, early in 1901 Courtland B. Van Sickler bought an interest in the parcels of land bounded by DeBaliviere, Skinker, Delmar and Forest Park, abutting the eastern edge of where Parkview would eventually be.  Mr. Van Sickler is listed in the 1903 Gould’s Saint Louis Directory as a clerk in a dry goods store, and it seems plausible that he may have represented a group of wealthy investors.  It was a portentous acquisition.  In June of 1901, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Committee announced that the Exposition would be built on the western half of forest Park and other land to the west, which would be leased from its owners (e.g., Washington University).  Within five months, by November 1901, The Parkview Realty and Improvement Company was formed with a capital stock of $5.5 million, an enormous sum for the time.  Van Sickler was far and away the majority stockholder, holding more than 45,000 of the 50,000 shares.  The land area acquired by Parkview Reality and Improvement was that between DeBaliviere, Skinker, Delmar and Forest Park (the land purchased earlier in the same year by van Sickler) plus an additional 80 acres just west of Skinker - the eventual home of Parkview. 

View west down Lindell from deBaliviere, April 7, 1902.  The sign says "Private Street No Hauling Permitted".  Washington University's Brookings Hall is in the distance.  --Photo in the private collection of E. Taylor; reproduced with permission.
 

Grading gang at work June 12, 1902.  --Photo in the private collection of E. Taylor; reproduced with permission.
 

Many established St. Lousians were involved in Parkview Realty and Improvement Company.  Henry S. Caulfield, attorney for the Lincoln Trust Company, soon to be one of the original trustees of Parkview, and later governor of Missouri, filed the Articles of Incorporation.  Corporate directors were Adrian Ogle Rule, vice president of Kilgen-Rule Real Estate Company; Thomas Wright, a cigar manufacturer; Moses Greenwood, Jr., a U. S. Assistant Civil Engineer; George Durant, general manager of Bell Telephone and first vice-president of Lincoln Trust Company; and Edward H. Coffin, who worked for the Wabash Railroad.  Early in 1902 the company hired well-regarded railroad builder John Scott to grade the land and tame the River Des Peres.  The labors of man and beast took nearly two years to complete, being finally finished in December 1903 at a cost of nearly three quarters of a million dollars and a year behind schedule.  The exorbitance of the cost provoked a lawsuit against Scott that worked its way through the courts for ten years and ultimately went to the Missouri Supreme Court.

While the grading work dragged on, the owners of Parkview Realty and Improvement Company refined their plans.  They divided their property into three sections and had plans for each both during and after the World's Fair.  One section was the Catlin Tract, the long narrow strip of land immediately bordering the northern edge of Forest Park along Lindell.  This was leased to the Exposition and was used as the World's Fair amusement center.  After the fair, the Catlin Tract became the private neighborhood of gracious homes on Lindell Blvd. facing Forest Park that we see today.  Section two encompassed the remaining property north of the Catlin Tract to Delmar.  This was leased for storage and construction of temporary hotels, cottages, restaurants and the like to serve the Fair.  After the fair, this area stood mostly vacant for some years despite Parkview Realty and Improvement's initial hopes that it would develop immediately into sites of high class apartment buildings and residences.  The third section was the 80 acres just on the other side of Skinker, between Skinker and Melville, the railroad tracks and Delmar.  This was considered the most ideal and desirable of the tracts.  Plans were to sell the interest in this land to an association of members of the Parkview Realty and Improvement Company and friends who would form a separate real estate company to develop and sell lots in a high-class private residential neighborhood.   Thus was formed Beredith Realty.      ---->to next pg

From the 1903 prospectus of the Parkview Realty and Improvement Co.  --From "Urban Oasis - 75 years in Parkview a St. Louis Private Place"

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