He says that as part of the federal program he built projects in St. Louis and other cities. Housing units were destroyed to expand the urban area with highways, but he states this is the result not the intention of the project. He describes how the Black community was less able to move into single-family homes. His company built rental units.  The St. Louis housing authority managed who was able to move into the units. These units, both family and single bedroom (for the elderly), were limited to people making below a certain income.  He describes the process, well analyzed by historians and social justice minded individuals, of the different outcomes of people who were able to own homes vs renters. Millstone describes how rental properties were less maintained, he states there was a lack of pride and intention from the occupants of rentals compared to homeowners. People who owned homes were able to gain wealth as property and home value increased.  

     He describes how this process in St. Louis and Mill Creek was far from unique and rather happened all over the United States as part of the same process. He says no place did any better St. Louis at managing the urban renewal of black neighborhoods. 

     He stated that the residents of Mill Creek feel positively about the Mill Creek area because of nostalgia, not because of the state of area. For further description of this is his follow-up interview until the 2:20 minute mark: https://on.soundcloud.com/7CGfv

     She recalls her brothers to the black theater (now an Irish Pub) by the Union Station to watch shows. They were friends with the white boys in the neighborhood and kept asking why they couldn’t go to the movies with their white friends. Shank states everyone in the neighborhood was nice. Her childhood is defined by experiencing the opportunities of the city. Shank and her brothers went to shows and attended classes at the Y.  

      Shank recalls a stark change as white flight began out of the city center. She also describes the affects of Red Lining on the city. She recalls the people calling the south side of the city “the ghetto”, as a child she thought the word meant a group of similar people living together. Shank recalls people using that term to describe the Italians in the south, but her neighborhood being a more central and nicer part of the city. 

     She remembers her family visiting the south and noticing a stark difference as they crossed the Mason-Dixon line. After that point of their trip, she learned what Jim Crow was. At each rest stop, bathroom, bus, restaurant, her mother would explain how that’s the way it was in the south.  

We have accessed her interviews through the Missouri Historical Society and have linked many which highlight the experiences of residents in Mill Creek Valley throughout this project.  

     He says he had everything he wanted in the area. There were 4 grocery stores, and fish and meat markets. He got a job shining shoes at Union Station which he remembers not only fondly but as a formative experience. It taught him to hustle. He saw people from all over the US, it was exciting, and people gave good tips. He would finish his shift around midnight, and walk home without worrying about anyone bothering him. No place was uncomfortable for him in St. Louis. 

     King states people sent you to school to learn. Not just reading and writing, but the ways of life. He describes his teachers as dedicated and like family, both close to him and having control. He would never bring lunch but buy a sandwich or go home. King remembers having lots of free time, playing basketball, baseball, marbles and going to the Y. St. Louis and Mill Creek where segregated, he states like everywhere at the time. But, he did not have problems with white people as a kid, he would catch a truck to South St. Louis to play pick-up games with whoever was there. This is the way he remembers St. Louis, but he describes his time in service differently. 

     King recalls being aware of race but it not being uncomfortable during his childhood. He recalls learning that white people had better things, learning words to describe different people, degrading words and others. Downtown he recalls as clearly segregated, but he did not talk about racial clashes when describing his time in Mill Creek. He remembers his neighborhood differently, as a space which seemed to allow racial tensions to fade into the background, beyond the borders of the blocks he remembers as his. He remembers racial discrimination as both “just a way of life” and central to his experiences outside rather than within Mill Creek.  

     Kings time in Mill Creek is defined by community. It is the place where he grew up as a child and seems untouched in his memory. Despite the destruction of the area, he still thinks of the people of the neighborhood. He keeps up with a few despite the dispersal of the people who lived there. 

     When Europeans arrived Mill Creek became a commercial center built around the mills. Overtime railroads became a central part of the area with Union Station opening in 1894. During this time St. Louis had, and maintains, a large immigrant population. Mill Creek Valley was a residential area as well as a commercial one. Many German Immigrants lived in Mill Creek. After the Civil War many Black families moved north. Throughout the 20th century Mill Creek Valley held one of the largest populations of African Americans.  

     Business and residence filled the area in the 1950s. Mill Creek valley was built to be a community with a mixture of commercial spaces, educational opportunities, religious spaces, homes and housing, workplaces, transportation, and community resources. This diversity of the built environment was made to support a community, this goal and thus the place changed during Urban Renewal.