WGHS Archives

The Webster Groves Historical Society manages an archive of historical local records. This archive originally belonged to the City and was largely the result of years of collecting by the City Clerk's Office. As the collection grew, the City did not have the resources to care for the items and turned the archives over the Webster Groves High School history department. Wilda Swift, the history teacher at that time, organized everything into categories and folders and brought the files to the Historical Society.

After Wilda's strong beginnings, we were fortunate to have two major people to nurture and grow the archives, Charles Rehkopf and Ann Morris. Charles was the historian for the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Webster and Ann was a professional historian and archivist. These two folks helped grow the archives into over seventy different collections and create the finding aids used today to locate items during research efforts.

Recently, the finding aids catalog has been put into a searchable database and brought onto the Internet. Far from complete, you can search for yourself and read about the various collections acquired from local families, businesses and institutions.

The Historical Society does NOT conduct research for people. We simply do not have the volunteers to do so. If you are conducting research you contact us at archives [at] historicwebster [dot] org and someone from the archives committee will response to your inquiry. We can schedule time and assistance for you to come by and conduct your own research with the guidance of our volunteer curators.

If you would like to donate items to our archives, we are prepared to accept original manuscripts, documents, photographs, maps, drawings, advertisements and other paper items that pertain to Webster Groves' history. We do not have the facilities for large items, clothing, and things that have unique or special preservation requirements.