Description
Rice-Stix Inc. was a dry goods wholesaler that started in a small building on North Broadway and grew into one of the largest manufacturers and distributors in the country. Jonathan Rice, William Stix, and Benjamin Eiseman opened a small retail store in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1861. Other members of the families—Jonathan Rice, David Eiseman, and Elias Michael, a Stix son-in-law—joined the firm. The yellow fever epidemic of 1878 spurred the company to move upriver to St. Louis the following year, where the store opened in a small building at 410 North Broadway and soon expanded along that thoroughfare.In 1889 the company moved to a newly completed structure, later known as the Merchandise Mart, and by 1907 Rice-Stix occupied the entire building on the block of 10th, 11th, St. Charles, and Washington. In 1913 an annex was added a block south and in 1920 additional space was constructed. Rice-Stix had the largest space of any downtown St. Louis firm, plus warehouses and factories in outlying areas.By midcentury Rice-Stix offered some forty products and was one of the largest manufacturers of wearing apparel in the country, with imports from Ireland, China, Japan, and Europe. The firm included eighteen factories in the midwest and six branches of traveling salesmen. In 1955 the families sold the company, and in 1957 it was moved to New York.Two generations of the Rice and Stix families and their wives were active in civic and philanthropic works and were leaders in the Jewish community. William Stix was a prominent supporter of Jewish Hospital and president of Temple Israel. Stix Elementary School, adjacent to the grounds of the hospital, was named for him; when BJC expanded, the school was razed, but the name is maintained in the Stix Early Childhood Center on Tower Grove Avenue.Elias Michael was the first Jew on the St. Louis Board of Education, a director of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and an active participant in Jewish educational institutions and municipal endeavors. His wife Rachel Stix Michael founded the Missouri Occupational Therapy Association and after her husband’s death was instrumental in establishing the Elias Michael School for Crippled Children in his memory, as well as the Turner Open Air School for African American children. The Michael School on Euclid and Forest Park also fell to BJC expansion; its facilities were moved to the St. Louis Public Schools complex on Jefferson Avenue as the Gateway Michael School.The family home on Forsyth Boulevard was donated to Washington University and is now the Stix International House.

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