3354 Iowa Avenue

At the northeast corner of Cherokee Street and Iowa Avenue, the Cinderella Airdome, an outdoor theater operated by Harry and Eugene Freund, opened in 1921. The brothers had built the Cinderella Theater in 1913 and also operated the Favorite Airdome and Amusement Company at 2701 Cherokee Street. In 1926 they built the Cinderella Ballroom on this site as the adjacent building at 2715 Cherokee was also constructed, and the ballroom officially opened in 1927 under the Cinderella Amusement Company, with Eugene Freun as president and Harry Freund as vice president. Designed by architects Wedemeyer and Nelson in the Italian Renaissance Revival style and constructed by Huger and Bueker, the building housed the Cinderella Bowling Alley, the Cinderella Dance Academy, and various smaller businesses in the 1920s and 30s. In the 1930s Art Kawall and H. J. "Nap" Burian owned and operated the ballroom and changed its name to Casaloma Ballroom around 1939. A fire ruined the original building in 1940, but the Freunds quickly rebuilt it, and it reopened by the end of the year in the Streamlined Art Deco style from architect William Wedemeyer, who by then had formed a firm with his son, Wesley Wedemeyer. Reopened as the Casa Loma Ballroom, it later hosted performers including Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, and Benny Goodman. After "Nap" Burian died in 1958 and Art Kawall sold the ballroom in 1967, the Casa Loma Ballroom continued as a neighborhood landmark.

St. Louis, Missouri · United States