National Historic Landmark

Erlanger, Joseph, House

St. Louis (Independent City), St. Louis County, Missouri
Listed
December 8, 1976
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
76002234

About this property

The Joseph Erlanger House is a historic house at 5127 Waterman Boulevard in St. Louis, Missouri. As a National Historic Landmark, it was designated to recognize the achievements of Joseph Erlanger (1874-1965), an American doctor and physiologist, who was awarded with the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1944. It was Erlanger's home from 1917 until his death. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976. However, the house is not open to the public. The Erlanger House is located in the St. Louis' Forest Park area, on the north side of Waterman Boulevard, between Lake Avenue and Kingshighway Boulevard. It is an architecturally undistinguished suburban two story brick building, with a dormered hip roof. The front facade is made up of two bays wide, with a single-story porch extending across its width. A polygonal window bay projects above the main entrance and a two-story bay projects from the right side. The front roof face has a rounded dormer with three sash windows. The interior follows a side hall plan. The house is said to have been built about 1903, and was purchased by Dr. Joseph Erlanger in 1917. It is here that Erlanger raised his family and lived while working at Washington University in St. Louis, until the end of his life. Erlanger, a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, first achieved notice as a cardiologist, but achieved his greatest success in the field of neurophysiology. In collaboration with Herbert Spencer Gasser, he developed apparatus for making detailed sensitive measurements of electrical charges that passed through nerve fibers, establishing a relationship between the level of action potential and the nerve diameter. For this, he and Gasser shared the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. National Register of Historic Places listings in St. Louis north and west of downtown

Location

5127 Waterman Blvd.
St. Louis (Independent City), St. Louis County, Missouri
38.64867, -90.26777

Categories

SCIENCE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Portland and Westmoreland Places
Listed
0.2 mi
Holy Corners Historic District
Listed
0.2 mi
Savings Trust Company of St. Louis
Industrial
0.4 mi
Trinity Episcopal Church
Industrial
0.4 mi
Forest Park Headquarters Building
Industrial
0.5 mi

Nearby Battles

Action at St. Louis (Spanish Fort San Carlos)
1780Revolutionary War
4 mi

Questions about this property

When was Erlanger, Joseph, House listed on the National Register?

Erlanger, Joseph, House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 1976.

What type of historic resource is Erlanger, Joseph, House?

Erlanger, Joseph, House is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

Is Erlanger, Joseph, House a National Historic Landmark?

Yes. Erlanger, Joseph, House has been designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL), the highest level of federal recognition for historic properties in the United States.

What is the period of significance for Erlanger, Joseph, House?

The period of significance for Erlanger, Joseph, House is recorded as the industrial era.

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