The following is an email from Esley Hamilton, a preservation historian for St. Louis County Parks regarding this history of 211 Midland Ave.

“The site was part of the Spanish land grant later confirmed by the U. S. government to Ephraim Musick as Survey 3069.  The east part of the tract was later sold by Joseph Rowe to George Penn, who later divided it among his children.  His daughter Virginia got the part north of the Osage orange hedge, and in 1869 his son James S. Penn got 200 acres south of the hedge.  The deed was given in trust for Penn, his wife, and his eight children, with two trustees, George Penn, Jr. and Crawford E. Smith, Virginia's husband (St. Louis City Recorder of Deeds, Book 388, page 469 and St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds, Book 71, page 416).

George Penn survived until 1887, but James S. Penn died in 1878 (St. Louis County Probate Court, estates 517 and 159).  By 1893, his widow Dorothy or Dolly D., the stepdaughter of Walker P. Shumate, had moved with the children to Lincoln County.  They then sold "the James Penn Farm," as this tract was called, to the Overland Real Estate Company of St. Louis for $27,500.

The company was headed by Y. H. Bond (Young Hance Bond), a prominent physician, born in 1846 (Book of St. Louisans, p. 70), and the secretary was George Kingsland.  The firm had been active in opening up the Overland area to suburban development, successfully exploiting the accessibility afforded by the new streetcars and commuter railroads lines.  They made an agreement in 1897 with the Midland Street Railway Company that if the the company would extend their streetcar line from Woodson Road west to the James Penn Farm, Overland Realty would pay them $10,000 and give them five acres of the nearly 1,000 acres they claimed to own between Woodson Road and Creve Coeur Lake (Book 98, page 498).

A deed recorded in 1901 (Book 125, page 175), acknowledges that this agreement had been realized.  By that time, the line had opened the whole way to Creve Coeur Lake, which was already a place of resort for St. Louisans, and which now attracted larger crowds.  Overland Realty subdivided part of the Penn Farm in 1908 as "Penmar," including the present Eldon and Hathaway Drives, Doddridge Lane,and Edgeworth Avenue (Plat Book 6, page 46).  John L. Miers, who was the manager of the Creve Coeur Amusement Company, bought the southeastern 78.90 acres of the farm on April 12, 1907, paying $23,670 (Book 192, page 580).  Miers took out a building permit in October for the house, which he estimated would cost $7,000.  He listed himself as contractor and builder (St. Louis Daily Record, October 26, 1907).  The completed house is indicated in the 1909 county atlas.

Miers and his wife Laura then sold off part of their land.  They sold the 14.5 acres south of the streetcar line to John Jannopoulo, who developed the Delmar Garden Amusement Park at Delmar and Kingsland in University City, where the city streetcars met the Creve Coeur line (Book 219, page 115).  They sold a nine-acre tract at the west end of his property to W. F. Shuttleworth (Book 219, page 26) and another tract of five acres to Julius Baumhoff (Book 220, page 418).  Late in 1909, the Miers subdivided the remaining 50 acres as "Broad-View," with 6 lots (Plat Book 9, page 78).  Lot 1, with more than 21 acres, was intended for their own home.  They never sold any of these lots.

By 1920, Miers had become superintendent of the Creve Car street car line, with offices on DeBaliviere at the St. Louis terminus of the line.  In 1927, he and Laura resubdivided lots 2 through 6 of Broad-View, creating Terry, Gill, Broadview, Hedda, and Mack Avenues much as they are now, plus another street, Daley, which remains on paper only (Plat Book 24, page 56).  They sold several of the lots in this revised subdivision, but when John Miers died on September 5, 1929, many of the purchasers complained that they had never received their deeds (Probate Court estate 8888).

By the early 1930s, the Miers estate was in disarray.  While Miers had owned a variety of stocks and securities, the value of the personal property and soft drink fixtures he owned on the Public Service grounds at Creve Coeur Lake was only $121.25.  A loan of $10,000 made in 1927 was defaulted in 1932, and the Midland Avenue property was sold at auction to Theodore H. Slupsky for $12,250 (Book 1173, page 611).  Laura moved to the Christian Old People's Home at 6600 Washington in University City, a block from the Delmar Loop.  This building had been built for the 1904 World's Fair as the Park Hotel and later became the Greenway Apartments.  By 1952, she was in the Old Folks Home at 711 South Kirkwood Road.  A report made at that time (Probate Court, NOO 381) said that she had been born in Clarksville, Missouri on May 28, 1871 and was industrious, orderly, quiet, and reserved.  She had been considered a bit peculiar and liked to be alone, but now she had become insane, and the Probate Court agreed to her commitment to the state hospital in Fulton.  There were no children.”