Sublunar Photography

Table of Contents

The Lemp Mansion was built in 1868 for Jacob Feickert. Jacob's daughter Julia would later inherit the mansion when she married William J. Lemp, the head of what was at the time the largest brewery in Saint Louis; the renowned Lemp Brewery. William and Julia moved into the mansion in 1876. William J. Lemp Sr eventually became the first to commit suicide inside the mansion on February 13, 1904 following the deaths of two people very close to him. His son Frederick Lemp, who was destined to be the heir to the Lemp brewing empire, died unexpectedly at the age of 28 in 1901 and his closest friend Frederick Pabst died on January 1, 1904. Julia Lemp was shortly thereafter found to be suffering from cancer and she subsequently died in 1906.

In 1911, the Lemp Mansion underwent major renovations when it was partially remodeled into temporary offices for the Lemp Brewery. Following the closure of the brewery 11 years later (as a result of prohibition) and the complete liquidation of the brewery at auction, William J. Lemp Jr. committed suicide in the mansion on December 29, 1922. Charles Lemp was the last of the Lemps to live in the mansion wherein he committed suicide on May 9, 1949, after which the mansion became a boarding house and fell into disrepair. The construction of Interstate 55 during the 1960s led to the destruction of much of the grounds but spared the mansion.

It has been said that the Lemp Mansion had a secret tunnel beneath it which led to the Lemp Brewery and/or the Lemp/Cherokee Cave beneath it. On paper, this rumor didn't seem to have much credibility and most people (including myself) who researched it concluded that it was at best "highly unlikely" and the myth was declared "busted". However... all of these researchers were limited by their lack of physical access to the location and thus had to rely on the same incomplete documentation. My colleagues and I, on the other hand, were not content with research at arm's length. So we took our research further than others before us were willing to go. Our subsequent discoveries have definitively re-opened the case of the long-rumored Lemp Mansion Cave Connection. To be clear: there is no current tunnel access to or from the mansion today. Any possible access was completely bricked off and collapsed/filled in 1991.

The Lemp Mansion is currently a restaurant and inn. Tours are regularly made available, and it is a venue for murder mystery dinner theatre and Halloween parties.

Source(s): Wikipedia, "Lemp The Haunting History" by Stephen Walker