Holy Smoke

A thousand stories in a single wooden typeface

- Stefene Russell

IT’S CALLED SUPER SMOKE. At first glance, it looks like something off a Haight-Ashbury concert handbill. “The psychedelic movement adopted this font,” says Marie Oberkirsch, director of Central Print, a print studio in Old North St. Louis, “so it does look very ’60s and ’70s.” But Super Smoke dates to the 19th century, and that’s where this story starts.

Around 1889, a “Mr. Lelli” founded Przewodnik Polski, or Polish Guide, on St. Louis’ Near North Side. In 1905, it was handed off to a parish priest, who didn’t know what to do with it. He begged his sister, Helen Moczydlowski, to move from Wisconsin to help. She and her husband, Boleslaus, bought a building at 1308 Cass, set up house, and put presses in the basement. The Moczydlowskis odd-jobbed posters, wedding announcements, and handbills, but their main task was publishing a paper every Thursday. They translated world and U.S. news into Polish, peppering it with neighborhood items.