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A United Airlines flight takes off from Lambert St. Louis International Airport, near the Bridgeton post office in Carrollton Plaza on Natural Bridge Road on Sept. 12, 2022.
BRIDGETON — Political candidates often play up that they are farmers, military veterans or even bartenders to set themselves apart from competitors. Eric Schmitt, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Missouri, likes to say he’s not a billionaire, rather he’s from Bridgeton and won’t forget his working class roots.
It’s a dig he’s directed at Trudy Busch Valentine, the Democratic nominee, since they both won their primaries last month. Valentine, 65, an heiress to the former King of Beers, financed much of her primary campaign. She’s a registered nurse without political experience.
During Eric Schmitt's senior year at De Smet Jesuit High School, he was shown in the 1993 yearbook along with a quote by President Ronald Reagan.
Schmitt, 47, on the other hand, is an attorney involved with conservative politics since he was a teenager, growing up in an area one longtime resident called the Ladue of Bridgeton. His parents have lived in the same house since 1977. They sent Eric to De Smet, a private Catholic high school for boys run by Jesuits. Tuition is currently $18,950 a year.
“Those are the sacrifices a parent makes to get a good education for their child,” said his father, Stephen.
An alphabet soup of student activities and sports is listed below Eric’s Class of ’93 senior picture, capped off by a Ronald Reagan quote: “May every dawn be a great new beginning for America and may every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill.”
Bridgeton sits upon a hill in northwest St. Louis County, a suburb without a true center. Following shifting demographics and declining population (from nearly 20,000 in 1970 to 11,500 in 2020), the first minority to serve on the city council was elected in April. Bakula Patel, originally from India, replaced Andrew Purcell, accused of stealing his city salary by living in Illinois.
Bridgeton is Logistics Town, USA. As for Schmitt, who lives in Glendale, it has always been a place to pass through on the way to somewhere else. The main drags, St. Charles Rock Road and Natural Bridge, are squeezed in by one of the busiest intersections in Missouri — Interstates 70 and 270.
St. Louis Lambert International Airport really sets the tone. Fighter jets have the loudest roar, a regular reminder of Boeing’s legacy in the area. The noise drowns out the highways but not the giant promise unfulfilled.
More than 2,000 Bridgeton homes in the Carrollton subdivision were bought out and destroyed in recent decades to expand the runway system at Lambert. Concrete and demolition contractors had a lot of work, but the expansion didn’t have the desired impact. Commercial airlines like TWA were already tightening belts. The St. Louis region lost economic heft. “Aerotropolis,” or the China Hub that Schmitt championed in the Legislature, didn’t pan out.
En route to landing at Lambert St. Louis International Airport, a jet passes over a former Bridgeton neighborhood that was cleared in the late 1990s for an airport expansion, seen Sept. 14, 2022.
Today, Terminal 3 is a new bar and grill going in near the end of the runway, in an old strip mall called Carrollton Plaza. The family-owned business is struggling to meet Bridgeton code enforcement, though the space was previously used for a restaurant.
“It’s going to be a process,” said LaKeisha Sanders, 43. “We are going to be open by December unless they make our life a living hell.”
She wanted to open in Bridgeton partly because she has fond memories of attending Pattonville High School as part of the desegregation program. Her family runs another eatery, Gobble Stop Smokehouse, in nearby Creve Coeur.
“We know a lot of the people in this area,” she said.
She didn’t know Schmitt. Conrad Bowers did. If there were ever a Mr. Bridgeton, it would be him. Bowers served as mayor for nearly three decades, until 2015.
“Eric, hey, I am proud of him,” said Bowers, 87. “Family values, that’s something with him.”
Robert Hoffmann carries a case of soda from Carrollton Plaza to his apartment complex in the 12100 block of Natural Bridge Road in Bridgeton on Sept. 14, 2022.
Bowers was at the helm during the decline of Northwest Plaza, ongoing uncertainties at West Lake Landfill and airport woes. He fought the runway expansion, which he said bit off a third of Bridgeton’s housing stock, including his own. He and his wife, a retired art teacher at Pattonville High, ended up moving to a home on Old St. Charles Road with lots of big windows and wall space. They narrowly missed the 2011 EF4 tornado that leveled the area.
“Bridgeton has been through a lot,” Bowers said. “It’s still outstanding.”
Terry Briggs, 67, is the current mayor. He defines himself as an independent, even if he does appreciate the plugs that Schmitt keeps giving Bridgeton.
“It’s a pretty different town than when Eric was here as a kid,” he said.
As with many politicians, sometimes he agrees with Schmitt policies and sometimes he doesn’t. Briggs said he most agreed with Schmitt on issues involving people with developmental disabilities, back when Schmitt was representing the 15th District in the Missouri Senate. Schmitt, currently Missouri’s attorney general, also previously served as state treasurer and Glendale alderman. Briggs has a 38-year-old daughter with cerebral palsy. Schmitt and his wife, Jamie, who is taking a break from teaching, have three children. Their eldest, an 18-year-old son, is nonverbal and prone to seizures.
“He was a little more moderate when I met him,” Briggs said. “For whatever reason, he went more conservative. He’s probably doing it for political reasons. It’s a pretty big switch.”
Republican U.S. Senate candidate and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt visits supporters Betty and Rick Purvis at the Governor's Ham Breakfast on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022, at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, Mo.
The Missouri and Kansas Laborers District Council, formerly based in Bridgeton, also noted the shift. The union said it financially supported previous Schmitt campaigns.
“When it came time for Eric Schmitt to decide to run for statewide office, he decided he could not run statewide, and support working family issues,” Brandon Flinn, business manager of the union, said in a statement. “Eric turned his back on the working men and women of Missouri.”
Stephen Schmitt, 71, had a much different take on his son.
“It was the Democrats that shifted to the left,” he said, taking a break from seeding the lawn to visit with a reporter. “They are the socialist communists running the country right now. Eric stayed the same.”
He added with a smile: “Socialism works until you run out of everybody’s money.”
Father and son bear a striking resemblance, physically and politically. Both stand well over 6 feet tall, lean right.
“We are proud of him,” the father said. “He’s worked hard. He didn’t come from millions or billions.”
A child gets off a school bus in the Harmann Estates subdivision where Eric Schmitt grew up in Bridgeton, on Sept. 12, 2022.
Eric is the eldest of three siblings. One of his sisters is a public school teacher, the other a stay-at-home mom. Stephen said his son could make much more money working in the private sector.
“His head is in the right place,” he said.
Eric’s roots stretch out-state. Stephen’s parents grew up in rural central Missouri. They settled in Hanley Hills. Stephen’s father was a butcher and World War II vet. Stephen said he met his wife, Eric’s mother Kathleen, at what used to be Mercy High School, a coed Catholic school run by the Archdiocese of St. Louis that closed after several mergers.
Stephen said he worked as a union meat cutter while attending Lindenwood at night. After earning a degree, Anheuser-Busch hired him to be a supervisor. He stayed 30 years, until InBev acquired the company.
“I wasn’t anything special, I just ran a shift,” he said.
That was for the whole plant. At times, he reported to upper management, which would have included August Busch III, son of Trudy Busch Valentine’s father, Gussie.
“They are a great family, but she is a liberal politician,” he said.
Stephen said his son has a good sense of humor but takes the Constitution seriously. He said the political video where Eric takes a blowtorch to Biden’s “socialist agenda” was a satirical ad with relevant context. Eric says he’s fought the Biden administration on its U.S.-Mexico border policy, filed lawsuits to stop mask mandates in schools and stood firm with Trump to “stop election fraud.”
“Eric has people who love him. He has people who hate him,” his father said. “That’s because he takes a firm stand on the Constitution. You’ve got to have that freedom to express.”
Sandra Greenberg, of the Harmony Hills subdivision in Bridgeton, falls in the latter category.
“He’s a jerk,” she said. “He sued schools for trying to keep their kids safe. Wasted my tax dollars. He’s trying to take away women’s autonomy. If you are forcing a woman to stay pregnant, you have enslaved her.”
Greenberg, 62, recently co-founded a nonprofit that teaches music, dance, acting and writing. One bumper sticker on her minivan says you can support abortion rights and be a Christian, too. Another pays homage to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died before Roe v. Wade was recently overturned.
“Who was the Constitution written for? White male landowners,” Greenberg said. “We need to let the Constitution evolve like it should along with society.”
That Schmitt grew up in Bridgeton didn’t mean anything to her.
“Everybody is from somewhere,” she said. “It’s not Trudy Busch Valentine’s fault that she was born rich. Being poor doesn’t give you a corner on morality.”
Trudy Busch Valentine, left, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate for Missouri, greets Missouri State Rep. Richard Brown, D-Kansas City, on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022, outside Bike Stop Cafe in downtown St. Charles before the launch of her first RV tour across Northern Missouri. Photo by Christian Gooden, cgooden@post-dispatch.com
Being born poor gives you a corner on reality.
She was picking up her 4-year-old grandson from a 24-hour day care in Bridgeton. She still had her Waffle House apron on. She’s worked for the company about 15 years. She likes being a waitress. The tips give her daily cash flow to take care of immediate needs, like a flat tire on her 2003 Jeep Cherokee.
“It’s on life support,” she said.
Gardner lives in a 300-unit apartment complex by the runway that recently went through another ownership change. It’s called “The Landings at Brittany Acres.”
“That’s what it is this week,” she said.
Theresa Gardner returns to her apartment complex in Bridgeton with her grandson Jaden Jackson, 4, after working a shift at a nearby Waffle House, on Sept. 14, 2022. Gardner says she votes in every election but hasn't yet decided between Missouri's two U.S. Senate candidates.
Gardner graduated from the same high school as Schmitt’s father. She went on to Lincoln University, where, she said, she got “caught up in life and falling in love.” She said her career choice, journalism, “went out of style.” She racked up student debt and bad credit that she still carries with her while caring for her grandson.
The boy has special needs. Gardner said her daughter gave birth to him when she was 13.
“It was the worst of circumstances,” she said. “I go back and forth on that — between religion or reality. Was that a good choice for her?”
Gardner is not a political junkie, but she said she votes in every election. She doesn’t have her mind made up for the U.S. Senate race. While the Democratic Party supports more social services, she said low gas prices while Trump was president were a great boon to her budget. She recognized Valentine’s lack of political experience and upbringing.
“She may not have a snapshot on the average, everyday lifestyle because she didn’t grow up with struggles,” Gardner said.
Gardner likes that Schmitt has risen through the ranks, but she has reservations.
“I don’t think he’s in touch with minority and female issues,” she said. “He has the mentality that everybody can pull themselves up from their bootstraps and that’s not necessarily true.”
She said being from Bridgeton meant more when Schmitt was growing up here.
“He moved his family out. Why?” she said. “You wonder.”
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Jesse Bogan is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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A United Airlines flight takes off from Lambert St. Louis International Airport, near the Bridgeton post office in Carrollton Plaza on Natural Bridge Road on Sept. 12, 2022.
During Eric Schmitt's senior year at De Smet Jesuit High School, he was shown in the 1993 yearbook along with a quote by President Ronald Reagan.
En route to landing at Lambert St. Louis International Airport, a jet passes over a former Bridgeton neighborhood that was cleared in the late 1990s for an airport expansion, seen Sept. 14, 2022.
Robert Hoffmann carries a case of soda from Carrollton Plaza to his apartment complex in the 12100 block of Natural Bridge Road in Bridgeton on Sept. 14, 2022.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt visits supporters Betty and Rick Purvis at the Governor's Ham Breakfast on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022, at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, Mo.
A child gets off a school bus in the Harmann Estates subdivision where Eric Schmitt grew up in Bridgeton, on Sept. 12, 2022.
Trudy Busch Valentine, left, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate for Missouri, greets Missouri State Rep. Richard Brown, D-Kansas City, on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022, outside Bike Stop Cafe in downtown St. Charles before the launch of her first RV tour across Northern Missouri. Photo by Christian Gooden, cgooden@post-dispatch.com
Theresa Gardner returns to her apartment complex in Bridgeton with her grandson Jaden Jackson, 4, after working a shift at a nearby Waffle House, on Sept. 14, 2022. Gardner says she votes in every election but hasn't yet decided between Missouri's two U.S. Senate candidates.
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