Foundations

The Old House, "up on the hill"

Foundations are a classic use of rocks and the buildings in Monroe City are no exception.  Harold G. Baum, his wife Edith, daughter Diane, sons Harold R., and Duane moved to the farm “up on the hill” in 1936.  The barn remains standing today.  The rock foundation is still in relatively good shape, with the help of mortar repairs over the years.  They raised six or seven dairy cows which were kept in the barn.  Feeding and milking duty fell to Harold R. at age five.  They sold milk under the business name “H. G. Baum Dairy.”  We still have the stamp used to imprint the name on the bottle cap paper tops.  

The farm had been neglected for several years and was grown up with bushes, saplings, and sweet clover.  Harold was working for the REA and had little time for farm work.  So most of those duties fell to Harold R. (Junior) and Duane.  One of their first jobs was to clear the 40 acres of open ground.  They remember long days at ages 5 and 3 respectively, cutting brush and mowing sweet clover to clear the way for crops.  Then they had to plant the crops.  They planted corn by hand.  Duane got so tired one day, he dumped his remaining corn on a pile and covered it up with dirt.  He was done for the day!  But when Harold G. found out, there was heck to pay!

Harold G. did much of the farm work with a team of mules until 1940.  With the mules hitched to a wagon, he hauled rock for the road up the hill, hauled firewood, and cultivated corn.  They had a John Deere GP tractor to do the plowing.  Harold G. Bought the GP from his uncle Edmund Baum who lived south of Maeystown.  This is the tractor that sits in my yard today.  In 1940, the mules were replaced by a Ford 8N, ushering full mechanization to the farm.  

Cellar Foundation of the Old House

Built in the late 1800‘s, only the rock foundation and cellar of the old house remain intact today.   Butch was born in the house in 1938.  He was only two years old when he found a .22 caliber rifle in the house.  As he played with it, he pulled the trigger and the bullet in the chamber went off.  It went through the ceiling and through the bed upstairs.  Edith was making the bed at the time!  

The telephone phone company wouldn’t run a line up to this house because it was so remote.   Harold took things into his own hands and ran a line from his mother’s house in Monroe City up to the hill so they could have an early form of “long distance service.”

You can still see the outline of Edith’s garden below the house.  She lined the perimeter with daffodils and lillies to keep out rabbits and to beautify the garden.  In the spring, the flowers still bloom along a rough outline of her original garden.

In 1944, they moved off the hill and into what is now the Steinmann farm in Monroe City.   

The Store

A large brick building, used primarily as a store, sat atop this rock foundation.  It was probably built in 1851 and operated as a general store.  It was the first building in Monroe City to have “running water.”  The pipe which carried water from the dam to the mill was diverted through the store to provide a constant supply of water.  From the store, the pipe carried water outside to a public water trough.

Gustav Hirsch bought the store, mill, and farm property in 1891.  He and his wife lived there in the store building during their retirement years.  Gustav died in 1928.   She sold the store and mill in 1929 at which time “moonshiners” became tenants.

During Prohibition, moonshiners operated a bootleg whisky still in the building.  They fermented and cooked corn mash in large copper barrels which produced 180 proof alcohol.  Harold G. Baum and family lived in the house across the creek and had a telephone.  Each week, the moonshiners would give him word that product was ready for shipment.  Franz Presly was a produce businessman in East St. Louis.  He spoke with a with a thick, old-world accent.  Each week, Presly would call Harold with the secret-code question, “You got ‘dem goose ready?”  Harold would relay the moonshiner’s answer, “Yes.”  Presly would then make a night time run to Monroe City to pick up the moonshine for distribution.  Each week, Harold would find a five gallon bucket of moonshine on his step in return for his telephone relay service.  In 1933, the “revenuers” raided the operation and shot holes in the stills.  We have used the copper barrels to hold livestock feed on our farm ever since.

Hank Fults moved his family into the building.  He operated a tavern in one room and sold home brew beer for the duration of Prohibition.  Later, F. E. Johnson and his wife opened the ‘Monroe City Country Store’ in the building.  He sold soda, groceries, tobacco, trinkets, and most importantly, BBs for BB guns.  The creek was home to the kids of Monroe City.  We shot uncountable numbers of the copper BBs into the water as we whiled away long summer afternoons.  

The store building was torn down in the 1980’s.  The bricks were salvaged and undoubtedly ended up as walls in a new Pizza Hut somewhere.  The rock foundation stands in testament to the enterprising businessmen of Monroe City.