LOOKING BACK is a Leader online feature that highlights historic photos. Readers are invited to submit their historic Jefferson County photos for online publication.
In recognition of the long-anticipated reopening of the White Castle at Festus, LOOKING BACK this week features a photo of the original restaurant.
This photo is dated 1987, and while it’s certain that White Castle had established a foothold in the Twin Cities by that time, the date when the restaurant opened remains elusive.
Mark Patterson of Fast Foto thinks White Castle may have opened in 1982. “I think it was 30 years ago,” he said.
Patrick Martin, the Leader’s editorial page director, remembers the opening well but not the year.
“I remember working with Mark (Patterson) at the oldCourier-Journaland going in to work on the day it (White Castle) opened and saying to Mark at 9 a.m., ‘I think we need to go get some White Castles,’ and Mark said, ‘I already have.’ ”
Patterson’s recollections weren’t quite as detailed, although he’s not denying an early morning run for some of the square burgers.
“It seems like I might have done that,” he said. “I know I was excited about it. Before it opened, I’d have to drive to south (St. Louis) County for White Castles.”
Patterson said he remembers Martin lending him a book on one of the White Castle founders, Edgar Waldo “Billy” Ingram.
“He lent me this biography of Billy Ingram,” Patterson said. “He talked about in the old days, hamburger was not considered a legitimate food. They served hamburgers, but they made their restaurants white and immaculate and the men who worked in them wore white shirts and ties.”
By the time White Castle opened in Festus, the hamburger’s reputation was well established.
In the 1980s, Rob Scott of Crystal City was a college student in Cape Girardeau. He recalls packing his friends into his 1971 Chevy Malibu and driving more than 100 miles for sliders.
“We were three in the front seat and three in the back seat,” Scott said.
The motley crew bought four dozen plain burgers and another two dozen with cheese for the ride back home.
During the return trip to Cape Girardeau, they swapped some White Castle burgers for beer with a random I-55 motorist.
Leader advertising salesman Rob Schneider also remembers making that same trek.
“I went to SEMO in the 1980s, and I remember making some drunken road trips to White Castle in Festus,” he said. “But I never drove!”
Schneider, who grew up in Sunset Hills, said most of his buddies in his residence hall in Cape Girardeau also grew up in St. Louis so they were up for the trip, but not everyone.
“Two of my roommates were from Fredericktown and they didn’t know what White Castles were before,” Schneider said. “That all changed with one trip. They were hooked.”
If you would like to share your memories or can pinpoint the date the original White Castle opened in the Twin Cities, email them tonvrweakly@aol.com.
Send submissions to LOOKING BACK to nvrweakly@aol.com or bring or mail them to the Leader office, 503 N. Second St., Festus (P.O. Box 159, 63028). Please include your name, phone number, a brief description of what’s in the photo and tell us how you came by it. Please also include when it was taken, where and by whom (if known). A new LOOKING BACK photo will be posted each Thursday.
–Steve Taylor
