ST. LOUIS — It's the place to be for St. Patrick's Day, but there's a whole lot more to Dogtown that you may not know.
Sure, Dogtown is St. Louis’ Irish neighborhood. It’s a tight-knit community proudly displaying Irish flags and shamrocks year-round.
The quaint brick homes are affordable with the average selling for around $140,000. Ranking website Niche says the nightlife is great. While it has a suburban feel, it has the walkability of a city.
Isabel Acevedo and her husband have lived in Dogtown for 14 years. They started a family here.
“We love turtle park and we love coming into our business community. Our business community is thriving,” Acevedo said.
Turtle Park is the appetizer to the best St. Louis has to offer. People who live here have the luxury of walking right over the Tamm Avenue overpass to get to Forest Park and the St. Louis Zoo.
As you can imagine, Dogtown is the place to be around St. Patricks Day with the biggest parade and festival celebrating the Irish heritage and culture.
That culture dates back to the 1800s when Irish immigrants settled there to work in clay mines. They created a similar community to what they had at home. One that revolved around family and faith. St. James the Greater Church was the anchor to those beliefs.
James Mohan of The Ancient Order of Hibernians says: “The church was really the magnet that brought the people together, especially the Irish because they were a deep Irish Catholic Faith.”
If you’ve ever wondered how Dogtown got its name, it has to do with how miners referred to the shelters built up around the mines they worked. They would use words like doghole, doghouse and Dogtown to describe the area.
It stuck.
You can’t come to Dogtown without grabbing a Guinness at Seamus McDaniel’s or having a bite to eat at The Pat Connolly Tavern. Pat’s Tavern claims to be the oldest continuously operating Irish pub in St Louis.
While this community prides itself on its history, there’s a lot of new and exciting things happening in Dogtown today.
Including Dogs for Our Brave. It’s a non-profit that trains dogs to become companions for disabled veterans.
The businesses in Dogtown are the fabric of the community. Some of the best framing shops are here.
Everybody knows Nora’s Sandwich Shop and Felix’s Pizza. It’s not a St. Louis neighborhood without a brewery and Heavy Riff Brewing is the spot for craft beer lovers in Dogtown.
There’s also Bloom Cafe. A place that offers great food and job training for people with disabilities.
The Irish culture of loyalty keeps this community strong and makes way for an even brighter future.
“People have come and moved on but they come back for the parade," Mohan said. And they come back to visit Dogtown all the time because their roots are in this neighborhood.”
Dogtown has postponed its annual St. Patrick's Day parade amidst coronavirus concerns, but it will be rescheduled.
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