Historical October 1980 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
He was born in 1813 in Kentucky.
He spent most of his youth and young adulthood in Arkansas. Somewhere along the line he became a lawyer and set up practice in St. Louis after he arrived in 1839. William M. McPherson figured this trading and inchoate transportation center had commercial and industrial potential and would therefore need legal minds! Ten years later, following the cholera epidemic, he was treasurer, secretary and manager of the Bellefontaine Cemetery Association.
The cemetery began in 1849 and Mr. McPherson assisted in its organization. (More on the epidemic in a later article.) Like many lawyers he was in politics for a spell.
He married (1842) Mary Mitchell, daughter of James Mitchell, the then Post Master General under President Tyler.
He was elected to the state legislature ten years later but left law practice in 1853 when he got into real estate.
He built the first marble building in St. Louis between Olive and Locust Streets on Fourth Street.
He was involved in the Veranda Row series of business buildings on Fourth Street and Washington Avenue. Eventually he, with a Mr. Gage, planned and built subdivisions west of Grand Avenue and it is there McPherson Avenue began.
However, land was not McPherson’s only interest.
He was a trustee and large stockholder in the St. Louis Ice Company (1854) between Plum and Cedar Streets just south of Poplar Street.
He was elected president (1855) of the Missouri Pacific Railroad when it was in need of new leadership. Later in 1862 he helped underwrite the Kansas Pacific Railway to Denver. During the panic of 1857 he, with twelve other wealthy men, underwrote savings accounts in St. Louis banks to stem the run on specie sweeping the country. During the Civil War, after the fall of Vicksburg to General Grant, he won the transportation contract from the army between St. Louis and New Orleans. During that time he became a good friend of General Sherman.
He was involved with the St. Charles bridge over the Missouri River and the St. Louis (Eads) bridge over the Mississippi River.
The latter was completed in 1874, but William M. McPherson had already died two years earlier, 2 November 1872.
He had been a very active Baptist and member of the Second Baptist Church.
He was on the site selection committee for planning the westward movement of that church to Beaumont and Locust Streets which eventually happened in 1877.
One eulogist, shortly after McPherson’s death, stated his bridge building, railroad ties and quiet Christian living would keep his memory alive long after his death.
But it takes more than wealth, political connections, business acumen and army contracts to make a long memorial.
It takes the foresight to name a street after oneself. William McPherson’s portrait hangs in Missouri Historical Society, but if he hadn’t named a street for himself, this article would not have been written.
Originally published in The Paper, October 1980.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1980_10.pdf, printed page(s) 2; PDF page(s) 2.
