On Nov. 9, 1918, St. Louis Health Commissioner Dr. Max C. Starkloff ordered all non-essential voters, businesses, and factories closed for four days to try to stem the tide of the influenza epidemic.

The November 10 was a Sunday and November 11 was Armistice Day; in reality, his ban only affected the city’s economy for one-and-a-half days. That fact did not placate business owners. The Retailer’s Association and the Chamber of Commerce complained loudly, and even the Federal government, concerned about war production, bore down on Starkloff.

The next day, Starkloff and his medical advisory board agreed to lift the ban gradually over the course of the coming week. Commercial businesses were allowed to open beginning November 13, with St. Louis’s 100,000 schoolchildren returning to their classrooms the day after that.