Does anyone who lived in St. Louis, Missouri, in the 1960s remember Kerpin's (not sure of this spelling) Turkish or Finnish Sauna? I think it was somewhere in St. Louis' central west end and was open 24 hours per day.

While I understand that currently such places are believed to be frequented by homosexual men looking for a "connection," a friend and I used to go to Kerpin's late at night during our university's "final week" each semester. A few hours in the steam room flattened out any tension from that week, or so, of intense effort. And we used to have great fun watching incredibly obese middle-aged men sweat buckets, weigh themselves, congratulate themselves on the amount of weight they had lost that night. They would then visit the restaurant on premises, usually for a "sirloin and double order of fries."

My questions are: Does Kerpin's still exist; is it more or less as it was; or has it become a place for homosexuals rather than straights?

I think it does.

Did you and your buddies ever visit "The World" to see "Evelyn West and her $50,000 Treasure Chest"?

I just found out, Kerpan's (correct spelling) is no more.
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I don't believe I ever heard of the World. Having typed that, she may have performed at the Grand Burlesque (likely) or the Apollo (or was it the burlesque hall next to the Apollo)?

However, when we were 14, Ed Grossman and I took a bus downtown to the Grand one Saturday and saw Cupcake Cassidy. She clearly had many of Evelyn West's attributes. The Grand was razed when old Busch Stadium (aka Sportsman's Park until 1952) was replaced by Busch Memorial Stadium in the mid-1960s. The Grand was an incredible dump - but a dump with personality.

At 15 it was the most wonderful place in the midwest to visit...