Highway Farty refers to the local St. Louis pronunciation of old US 40 (now I-64), where the “o” vowel is shifted to an “ar” sound. It is a characteristic feature of a native St. Louis accent, which also turns neighboring I-44 into farty-far. In this instance though Highway Farty alludes to a YouTube channel on local St. Louis history. I watched this series’ first five episodes that explains why Babe Ruth liked coming to St. Louis to play baseball more than anywhere else in the country. Here is a heads-up, it wasn’t the baseball that attracted him.
The first episode acts as an introduction to this series and centers on Sportsman’s Park and its role in the 1926 World Series. At the time St. Louis had two MLB teams, the Cardinals and the Browns. Located on the northside, both teams shared Sportsmen’s, with one team on the road, while the other team at home. The American League Browns regularly brought the Yankees to town. In 1926 Ruth hit three homeruns in the fourth game of that world series. Most famously one for 11-year-old Johnny Sylvester who was sick in the hospital at the time.
Baseball may have first brought Babe Ruth to town, but it was his favorite whorehouse in the whole country that made him actually want to come here. Episodes 2-5 detail the search for this once famous, but now elusive house of ill repute. Host Don M. Kaiser travels around town, following his clues. False starts and dead ends include the House of the Good Sheperd, Magdalene Laundry and Busch’s Grove. Sifting evidence, he finally hits paydirt.
In St. Louis, on August 29, 1925, Ruth was fined $5,000 ($100,000 in today’s dollars) and suspended from the Yankees for violations of team rules. Given a train ticket, he was ordered back to New York. Instead, he headed back downtown and straight to his favorite bordello, whose site is currently occupied by a Salvation Army parking lot, near the midtown IKEA. On September 3, 1925, the Post Dispatch reported a police raid at this location where the moral squad arrested two young women and a maid. Ruth apologized to management and patch things up with his team and was in St. Louis again next year.
