From its earliest days as Old Frenchtown, Soulard,<br><br>St. Louis, has embodied a bold and colorful tapestry of<br><br>immigrant life in America. With remarkable depth, authors<br><br>Montesi and Deposki have detailed the birth, destruction,<br><br>and final restoration of this historic area through over<br><br>200 photographs.<br><br>Bequeathed by the widow of surveyor Antoine Soulard<br><br>to the city of St. Louis in 1842, what was once a plot of<br><br>land intended for a vegetable market became a center of a<br><br>community of popular parks, breweries, churches, and shops.<br><br>Masses of Eastern European immigrants flocked to Soulard,<br><br>just outside downtown St. Louis, to start a new life of hope<br><br>and growth. German, Irish, Italian, and Czech influences can<br><br>be seen here in the images of the infamous "brew barons,"<br><br>horse-drawn market carts, and "flounder" houses that the<br><br>authors have reproduced with insightful captions. Captured<br><br>here in original photographs is the inescapable fury of the<br><br>Great Cyclone of 1896 that destroyed the area but not its<br><br>clenched-fist determination to survive. Montesi and Deposki<br><br>take us on a heroic journey through the annals of time to<br><br>discover the tenacious heart of a neighborhood now known<br><br>as St. Louis' most popular venue for jazz and blues