A match between the married and single men of the Empire Club, will come off this afternoon, on Gamble Lawn, at half past two o'clock.
-St. Louis Daily Press, June 1, 1865
Gamble Lawn, which was originally used as a cricket ground and was one of the first baseball grounds in St. Louis, was located at the intersection of Gamble Avenue and West Twentieth St. Looking at a map, there is no Gamble Avenue or a West Twentieth St. in St. Louis today. There is however a Gamble St. that, if continued a couple of blocks east, would intersect with N. 20th St. at what is today Desoto Park. This location also happens to be a block west of Carr Square Park, which was used as a baseball grounds by the Morning Star Club in the antebellum era. It's impossible to say for certain if Desoto Park was the location of the Gamble Lawn grounds but it's certainly a wide open space that was in the right neighborhood. I'll have to see if I can find an old map with the 19th century street layout on it and we'll know for sure.
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