Central Rowing Club

The Central Rowing Club was founded in 1890, and it became one of the premiere rowing clubs in the region. The club operated a clubhouse at the foot of Angelica Street, near the railroad tracks at the Mississippi River. This clubhouse included a bowling alley in the lower level for the use of club members. When the Mississippi River levee was constructed in the 1950s, rowing on the river was no longer viable as a result of the swifter current and heavy commercial traffic. The clubhouse was therefore moved to north of Watkins Creek and the Chain of Rocks Bridge, where it functioned chiefly as a bar. The club’s boats were moved to Creve Coeur and possibly transferred to other ownership.

Karrasch Family

Hermann Karrasch immigrated to the United States from Germany with his mother, father, brother, and three sisters in 1895, at the age of 16. He married Clara Horkenbach in 1903, at about the time that he was serving as caretaker of the Central Rowing Club clubhouse. Hermann and Clara began raising a family, which included their children Eleanor Karrasch Hoefle and Harry Karrasch, Jr. Hermann died October 17, 1949, and Clara died in 2003.

The Karrasch family purchased another river property at Elsberry, Missouri in 1960. There, they fished, swam, and boated in the sloughs and backwaters of the Mississippi River near Kickapoo Island. The property was flooded several times due to the installation of successively higher levees placed nearby, and the family sold the property in 1995 or 1996.