Richardson Tomb, Bellefontaine Cemetery. Section PIERCE, Block 299, lot 4199. Stained glass windows by Frederick Lincoln Stoddard placed in 1902. As photographed 08/03/2025 by K. Rylance.
A.W. Cobb, architect. Stonecliffe cottage, Biddeford Pool, Maine. From Architects' and Builders' Magazine 5:9 (June 1904).
After the death of J. Clifford Richardson, Boston/Portland architect Albert W. Cobb (1858-1941) completed designs for a summer cottage on the family's property in Biddeford Pool, Maine. Visitors to the property in the summer of 1900 commented on the abundant plantings of roses: "roses of every kind from the sweet brier species that we usually have to seek by some old time stone wall to the bright damask beauties that our grandmothers loved." (Biddeford-Saco Journal July 7, 1900).
Stonecliffe (also Stone Cliffe) featured prominently in the May 1900 Ladies Home Journal (Philadelphia, Vol. 17 No. 6) and the June 1904 issue of Architects' and Builders' Magazine (Vol. 5, No. 9). Cobb and his business partner, John Calvin Stevens, published Examples of Early American Domestic Architecture in 1889. Cobb wrote the text and Stevens produced the sketches.
The Richardson Residence was located at 2947 Morgan Street, corner Garrison. This photograph was taken circa 1940-1959 by Dr. William G. Swekosky and is in the Swekosky Notre Dame College Collection: North St. Louis Residences collection retained by the Missouri Historical Society's Library and Research Center. ID: N06808
In 1903, the family's former residence had become home to the Union Mission Association, a Bible training organization that purchased the property for $20,000.
"Loss, $1,000,000." St. Louis Post-Dispatch (June 1, 1889): p. 5. https://www.newspapers.com/article/st-louis-post-dispatch-plan-of-the-bui/178819973/
The Richardson Drug Company expanded to a multi-building location on Clark Avenue and Fourth Street in 1884. The main building had been built in 1881 as a five-story structure designed by Isaac S. Taylor for Norton + Wieder, dealers in paints and varnishes. When that enterprise declared bankruptcy in 1885, J. Clifford Richardson leased the building from owner Edward J. Gay, added another story, and built a fireproof laboratory. On New Year's Day 1889, the Richardson Drug properties were engulfed in flames and the company's night watchman perished in the fire. According to contemporary reports, the laboratory building housed 700 barrels of brandy, the base spirit for many of the drug company's products. Witnesses reported multiple explosions from the vicinity of the laboratory.
After the fire, J.Clifford Richardson sold the St. Louis operation to the Meyer Brothers Drug Company. Gay commissioned architect Taylor to return to the site, adhere to the original footprint, but adopt new "slow combustion" fireproof elements, including thicker flooring supported by wooden girders.
Richard Henry Fuhrman, Aerial View of Chemical Building, Northeast Corner Eighth and Olive Streets. 1903. Missouri Historical Society Library and Research Center. Richard Fuhrman Collection. Identifier: P0764-00273-4g.
Designed by Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb for J. Clifford Richardson, the sixteen-story Chemical Building emerged in downtown St. Louis as a business venture. Constructed of steel, adorned with red brick and Van Winkle terra cotta, the orieled building with projecting bay windows rapidly attracted professionals and commercial shops when it opened in 1897.