Pacific Morning, circa 1980- Downtown Pacific Painting Out of Public View

By Pauline Masson

Tucked away in hallway off the Board of Aldermen council chamber at City Hall – visible to city staffers and elected officials but hidden from public view – is a unique portrait of one segment of Pacific history.

The 8′ x 11.6′ oil painting, aptly named “Pacific Morning,” depicts St. Louis Street with Sand Mountain in the background, as seen from atop the former fire watch tower on a sunlight morning in 1980.

Former Pacific resident Alan Hogan’s oil painting of downtown Pacific was on display in the Community School office (the old Pacific Public School on West Union Street) 30 years ago.  But family members thought the public might like to see the work and they asked if it could be displayed in a location where the public could see it.

The wonderfully colorful painting depicts the businesses on the north side of St. Louis street and vehicles parked at an angle at the season when trees are in full leaf. The white face of Sand Mountain is prominent behind the buildings.

A careful look at the big painting viewers can pick out the old mining opening and the shallow cave that holds the Nativity Scene statues each December in the face of Sand Mountain. The historic brick carriage house in back of Leah’s Department store building is visible if you know where to look. Herb Coffee’s gabled house can be seen perched on its promontory at North First and Osage.

City officials approved an exhibition loan agreement that would place the painting at City Hall through the year 2025.

It’s unclear what is supposed to happen next year when the agreement term limits. We are still searching for a copy of the actual agreement.

The MVR-III school district and the city worked together to move and re-hang the large canvas after school was out in June. I interviewed the artist by telephone in 2001 so I’m guessing that is the year it was moved to City Hall.

When I spoke with him, Mr. Hogan, was a high school art teacher in Fredericktown, Missouri. He explained that he had painted the scene as a project in lieu of thesis for his Masters of Art degree from South East State Missouri University (SEMO) in Cape Girardeau.

“I wanted a large project, a true city scene,” Hogan said. “And since Pacific was my hometown, I decided it was the right subject.”

To gain the right perspective, Hogan climbed the old siren tower east of St. Louis street early one morning, thus the picture’s title Pacific Morning. He took a series of fifteen to twenty 35 mm color prints. 

“I just kept moving the camera a little each time to gain a panorama,” he said.

The actual work of painting the large canvas – stretched on a specially built spring loaded stretcher – was done in Hogan’s Fredericktown garage. He then built a special case in which to transport the panting, first to the college to be evaluated as his Masters project, then to Pacific.

Hogan graduated from Pacific High in 1968, his parents owned the former Hogan Dairy. He attended Meramec Community College for two years then transferred to SEMO as an art major. He and his wife Linda have three children: Brandon, an architect in St. Louis; Shahn, a computer technician with the Farmington School District; and Emily, an artist. “Both boy also do art work,” Hogan said.

City officials agreed to accept the loan of the painting, which remains the property of the artist

Prior to its tenure at the Community School, the painting hung at Pacific Care Center temporarily.

The tower that Hogan climbed to gather perspective for the scene stood at the east end of the former model train museum (aka Smith’s Confectionary) building. It served as a fire watch tower for the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads and the town of Pacific. 

I could not find dates for the tower but it probably dated to the early days of railroads in Pacific. Jim Schwinkendorf, retired BNSF executive, said the railroads would have maintained early fire warnings on all its buildings. The Sanborn Fire Insurance maps show that there were seventeen railroad (all wooden) structures in Pacific, including a round house, repair shop, storage warehouses, refectory, ice house and four water towers. As a result of the Confederate Army raid here on Oct. 1, 1864 they all burned to the ground.