Meet me in St. Louis

In the King Collection, memorabilia and photographs inherited from my surrogate grandmother, I recently found a Souvenir Book of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition 1904.

There’s a photo in the book of a De Smet Bridge at the exposition.  Pierre-Jean De Smet was a Jesuit priest and missionary  who established religious institutions throughout the Midwest and the West. There’s a bust of him on GU’s campus and one of the college’s infamous dorms, DeSmet Hall, is named for him.

When I find stuff like this, I immediately want it to have a good home. I emailed GU’s archivist to see if she wanted it for their De Smet collection. No answer yet. There must be a lot of these still in circulation, because they aren’t very expensive on auction sites, about $30 tops.

So these dilemmas continue. How do you find good homes for this kind of historic stuff?

(Photo from King Collection/Spokesman-Review archives)