Title: St. Louis Car Company Records, 1887-1997
Arrangement
The collection is in six series, described below.
Series 1: Publicity materials, arranged alphabetically by subject.
Series 2: Specifications, arranged by type of vehicle
Series 3: Job books and cost data, arranged chronologically.
Series 4: General office files, including material on PCC cars and wholly owned subsidiaries such as the St. Louis Aircraft Company. This is by no means a complete office file of the Car Company. In addition, users should be aware that our collection contains no personnel files from the company.
Series 5: Photographs and negatives of cars, trucks, and other products produced by the company, arranged chronologically (by job order number).
Series 6: Drawings of cars produced by the company, arranged in rough chronological order
Administrative/Biographical History
The St. Louis Car Company was formed in April of 1887, to manufacture and sell streetcars and other kinds of rolling stock of street and steam railways. In succeeding years the company built automobiles, including the American Mors, the Skelton, and the Standard Six. A division of the company produced aircraft such as the Cardinal. During the two world wars, the company manufactured gliders, trainer, Alligators, flying boats, and dirigible gondolas. Among their most sucessful products were the Birney Safety Cars and the PCC Cars. The Car Company disbanded in 1973. For more information on the history of the company, see Andrew D. Young and Eugene Provenzo, The History of the St. Louis Car Company (Howell North Books 1978). See also Alan R. Lind, From Horsecars to Streamliners.
