'Mum's' Birthday

We first met our friend's (Tony & Mary) postman, Ray, at one of their recent get-togethers. Ray's Mum (who is nearly ninety & everyone calls 'Mum') was also there & she is English, having made the journey to the US by boat when she was young. This meant that we spent quite a lot of time talking about the UK, our favourite things from 'home' & Mum's interesting life. We were very kindly invited to her birthday party which was held at the 'Great Pacific Coffee Company' in Old Town Pacific.

The coffee co. is located in the McHugh & Dailey Mercantile building which was, at one time, the largest building in Pacific. It was constructed in 1908 when Lawrence P McHugh & James J Dailey constructed the building as the anchor of their growing mercantile business. It was built using 11 railroad cars of bricks, lumber, & ornate materials that were dismantled & removed from the 1904 World's Fair in St Louis.

Pacific has a population of about 6500, but is one of the top 10 fastest growing cities within the St Louis 'Metro' area. It is located along Historic Route 66, Interstate 44, Union Pacific & Burlington Frisco Railroads, & the Meramec River, with the St Peter's Sandstone bluffs lining the north side of the city. Unfortunately, due to the close proximity of the river, Pacific got completely hammered by the recent floods, with a lot of the houses & other buildings being completely inundated with floodwater. There were still plenty of sandbags stacked around downtown buildings, but the parts of the city that we saw didn't appear to have been damaged by the high waters. The area looked quite rural (although there are modern developments that we didn't see) & this added to it's charm.