Bob Heil grew up in Marissa and lived in Belleville. He is best known as the inventor of the Heil Talk Box used by rock musicians Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh of the Eagles, Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi, and others. He was a student of famed St. Louis organist Stan Kann, became a theater organ musician, performing on the Fox Theatre’s Wurlitzer when he was 15. Parallel to his commercial and artistic success in live music, was his passion for amateur radio.

Stan Kann (December 9, 1924 – September 29, 2008) grew up in St. Louis and majored in classical organ at Washington University. While there, he persuaded the owners of the Fox Theater, the Aruther Brothers, to refurbish its 4-36 Fox Special Wurlitzer, which had been unused for twenty years, and became the official house organist in 1952. In 1956, Kann installed a Wurlitzer in the famous St. Louis restaurant “Ruggeri’s On The Hill“and played there regularly until 1974.

The Curtiss-Wright Corporation built planes for WWII in a historic building just north of the Lambert St. Louis Airport runways. The historic building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. As of 2023, Lambert Airport, the FAA, and Boeing are trying to demolish the historic building to replace it with a new airplane production facility. Here is an article from 1940 about the building. Here is the 2023 report where they are hoping to demolish the building (contains photos).

The first student film ever made was created in 1916 by students at Washington University. The Thyrsus Drama Club at Washington University created the film for the “Univee Surkuss.” The film centers on the budding romance of campus jock, Jack Tower, and the titular maid of the McMillan women’s dormitory, Myrtle Maroon, as they face young adulthood’s biggest moments: the big track meet, graduation, marriage, and an encounter with rogue highwaymen!

Howard Hughes acquired control of TWA in 1939. TWA had a Hub in St. Louis until 2001 when it was sold to American Airlines.

Sean Gunn, the actor playing Kirk on Gilmore Girls, was born in St. Louis. His father is James F. Gunn, a retired partner and corporate attorney with the law firm Thompson Coburn in St. Louis. He went to SLU High for highschool.

The St. Louis airport is named for Albert Bond Lambert, a golfer who competed in the 1904 Summer Olympics. His father was Jordan W. Lambert, founder of Lambert Pharmaceutical Company which made Listerine. In 1909, Lambert met the Wright Brothers, and purchased his first airplane from them. He took flying lessons from Orville Wright, and in 1911 became the first St. Louis resident to hold a pilot’s license. In 1925, for $68,000, Lambert purchased Kinloch Field of Kinloch, Missouri, a 170-acre (0.

St. Louis was a center of the early American automobile-making industry between 1900 and 1930. The “St. Louis” model of the Dorris automobile manufactured by the Saint Louis Motor Carriage Company was the first successful single-cylinder car ever made. (ref)

Here are some things made in St. Louis: Tums Cheese-its sweet tarts

St. Louis Blues is a 1958 American film broadly based on the life of W. C. Handy. The film had its world premiere on April 10, 1958, at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri, less than two weeks after Handy’s death.