A few weeks ago before the Central Library closed for its 2 year renovation I was there thumbing through a box of articles looking for items on St. Louis Centre when I ran across this. Several decades before St. Louis Centre would darken Washington Avenue and Locust Street, another multi-story bridge was constructed over St. Charles Street to connect Nugent's department store with its annex to the south. Nugents was located at the southeast corner of Washington Avenue and Broadway.
Occupying five floors on half a block plus an annex of at least equal size south of St. Charles Street, Nugent's was one of several medium size department stores in Downtown that were contenders amongst the big three (Stix Baer & Fuller, Scruggs Vandervoort Barney, and Famous Barr). Economic forces of the depression however caused Nugent's to close its doors in 1933.While Nugent's and it's four story bridge are long gone, and several of Downtown's many bridges that connected warehouses have been demolished over the years, a few survive, including one near St. Charles and 11th Street and one connecting to City Museum.
