George Vashon Museum

2223 St. Louis Avenue
St. Louis 63106
314-749-6322

Admission is $10.00

http://www.georgevashonmuseum.org/    

Founded in 2015

This museum is housed in an 1879 three-story mansion on "Millionaires Row" in St. Louis Place Neighborhood. Before the building was a museum it also was a funeral home and a church. 

This museum's founder, director, and curator is Calvin Riley, a retired educator. He has accumulated more than 4000 artifacts covering 250 years of regional African American History. A mission statement posted in the front hall spells out Riley’s goal: to preserve the history and achievements of St. Louis African-Americans and to recognize those who fought for civil rights and to change unjust laws. It also refers to the collection as the “The Spider Web,’’ because it has no ending and continues to grow.

Mr. Riley does not allow photographs to be taken inside the museum except for one room. This photograph from the front lobby gives you an idea of how many historical items are covering the walls of this old mansion. 

Among the many, many items in this collection are:

• wooden chairs handmade by a slave
• mannequins dressed in uniforms worn by Pullman porters and by nurses at Homer G. Phillips Hospital 
• memorabilia from black social clubs of the 1950's
• civil rights posters of the 1960's
• original documents from the Dred Scott case
• heirlooms owned by the family of pioneering attorney George Vashon
• the reassembled laboratory of Dr. Lincoln Diuguid, African-American scientist
• a sign that designated a "Colored Waiting Room" and came from St. Louis Union Station
• photographs and documents of prominent African-American families from the early 1900's. 

The one room where a visitor is allowed to take a picture is 

the old funeral home chapel. The photograph gives you an accurate picture of how many items are crowded into this collection.  

Comments:  The only way to view this museum is by a guided tour by Mr. Riley. The tour lasts about one hour unless the group asks a lot of questions! 

Obviously this museum is packed full of artifacts.  That makes it difficult to see all the items as you walk through. If one were allowed to wander about I could see spending a few hours in there noticing each item. It is very impressive what this one man has collected.  

There were a number of very interesting items in this museum. 

This black history museum is less than two blocks from the Griot Museum of Black History, thus we visited them on the same day with lunch at Crown Candy Kitchen in between the two museums visits.