Alt Property Preserves Glimmers of Pacific History / Amateur Athletics and Industrial Development

By Pauline Masson –

Property owner Barbara Alt said my previous blog on the attempt to rezone her property located off Industrial Drive from non urban to light industrial got one word wrong. It was an important word.

I quoted her as saying in the public participation of the board of aldermen meeting that she had tried for twelve years to develop the property. What she said was she had tried for twelve years to divide the property, which was jointly owned with her, her children and her in-laws, to clarify its ownership for their heirs.

The challenge to divide the property caught Alt in a twelve-year web of bureaucracy and zoning regulations that makes red tape look like a child’s string game of Jacob’s ladder.

But wait. 

Long before Barb Alt and her children grappled with the arcane world of Pacific zoning regulations, this small patch of farmland secured a niche in Pacific history, not for the crops grown there but for the athletic prowess of its teen age children – the record setting Maguire sisters and legendary mile runner Leroy Alt.

In the 1920s, on the Maguire farm – later the George and Anna Weber farm – three sisters entered their teens just as the national Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) allowed girls to compete in track and field events. Through their high school years, Anna, Irene, and Catherine Maguire set and broke records in the 100 yard dash, standing and running broad jump, shot put, and high jump from Philadelphia to Pasadena, California. Catherine would represent the United States in the 1927 Olympic Games in Amsterdam where she scored fifth in the world in the high jump. When she retuned to the U.S., New York City mayor Jimmy Walker gave her the key to his City. In Missouri the mayor of St. Louis followed suit in front of 75 Pacific residents who had traveled there to meet her at Union Station.

The Maguire sisters’ neighbor mile-runner Leroy Alt and his track and field teammates kept Pacific on the front pages of regional newspapers their entire four years of high school. They dominated Franklin County athletics, winning meet after meet and filling a trophy case in the front hall of Pacific Public School with an array of silver cups. They brought home the most competitive trophy in amateur athletics at the time, the coveted Frisco Travelers Cup. A few years back, when it was deemed that there were so many of the old silver cups that some would be melted down for the money, Leroy’s son Henry rescued the Frisco cup, which he said he will keep as a family memento. Leroy set a record for the mile that was not broken until 1952.

That was about the time that another Pacific favorite son took special interest in the Weber and Alt farms. As Pacific residents watched neighboring cities attract large industrial firms to beef up their economies, Joe Dailey, scion of leading merchant James Dailey, who, with his partner Lawrence McHugh, built the landmark McHugh-Dailey building, decided Pacific needed an industrial park of its own. Joe identified the farms south of town as the ideal spot and bought part of the Weber farm. It was still outside the city limits, but, mover and shaker that he was, Joe could fix that. He choreographed a plan to annex the Weber farm – and his industrial park – into the city. 

Although it was not exactly what the Alt family sought, the Alt farm was included in the annexation, which brought it into the realm of zoning regulations under the thumb of a rotating group of city fathers, who seemed to create a new set of rules with new administration. Leroy and his two sons Leroy and Henry continued to farm the family property, under the partnership Alt Farm LLC. 

Leroy and Henry Alt, both were single at the time, bought 19.6 acres of land from the Webers. When Leroy married Barb and Henry married Charlene, the wives names were added to the deed of the 19.6 acres. Each couple had an undivided interest in the property.

Dailey needed an easement across the Alt property for a water main to get water into the industrial park. He made a deal with the Alts to release a spite strip he had reserved along Industrial Drive to the city so that the Alts would be able to access Industrial Drive. He promised to release the easement to the city.

When the elder Leroy Alt died in 1977, he left the family farm land to his wife, Florence. Then Florence died in 1993, leaving the 40 acres, now under consideration for rezoning, to her son Leroy and the front part of the farm (Denton Road) to Henry. Leroy and Henry were still in the farm partnership. The younger Leroy died in 2010, dissolving the partnership. A new Alt Farm LLC was created, with Henry Alt and his son Paul as partners. The younger Leroy Alt died intestate, so the estate had to go through probate, which created the need to divide the 19.6 ares between the brothers and their spouses.

The city deemed that because the division would create another buildable lot, the process would have to through Planning and Zoning.

It turned out that the city could find no record of Dailey releasing the five-foot spite strip. No deed was recorded with the county, and City Clerk Kim Barfield said she could find no record of it. She said it could have been lost in the great Meramec River flood of 1982, along with other records that were lost. 

In order to gain access to the 40 acres Barb Alt had to buy the spite strip from the Dailey Brothers. After she bought the spite strip, she tried again to divide the property. She wanted to put in a road easement to get into her 40 acres. She researched the City of Pacific requirements and drew into the plat a 50-foot road/utility easement, which was what the City required for a subdivision. 

“Because the property was still being farmed, we drew in the easement on the west side of the property so as not to disturb the farm terraces, but we still needed a small easement off the corner of my in-laws’ property to make the turn into ours,” Barb said. “Then mayor Herb Adams suggested that we just leave out the road easement and deal with that whenever we decided to develop the 40 acres, but the city attorney at the time, and some of the aldermen, insisted that it be on the plat because they knew that the land would someday be developed.”

This required the completion of a  survey, which was revised again and again. Eventually provisions were made to have the road dedicated to the City of Pacific when the 40 acres was divided into more than two lots. 

“My intent at the time was to continue to let it be farmed by Alt Farm LLC, along with the 40 acres my children and I inherited from my husband, but we had to go through this process (to divide it),” Barb Alt said. “The City’s plans for the property to eventually be developed have cost us way too much already, in land, buying the spite strip, surveyor and attorney fees, as well as in time. Alt Farm LLC has been farming all 48 acres the whole time, but it is now time for us to sell it.”

Barb and her children never advertised the property for sale. It continued to be farmed by Henry Alt and his son Paul, as it is today.  

It was not until early 2020 (before the pandemic) that they had a contract on their property with an interested buyer. The contract fell through because of the COVID pandemic and uncertainty on everyone’s part.  Now, two years later, they have a contract with Jeff Hawley, who wants to buy the land for light industrial development.  

The request to rezone this much regulated parcel of land from non urban to light industrial, which has been tabled at previous board of aldermen meetings, will be on the board of aldermen meeting agenda at the Tuesday, Sept. 20 board meeting.