St. Louis is a city and port in the state of Missouri. The city developed along the western bank of the Mississippi River, which forms Missouri's border with Illinois. In 2010, St. Louis had a population of 319,294; a 2013 estimate put the population at 318,416, making it the 58th-most populous US city and the second-largest city in the state in terms of city proper population. The St. Louis metropolitan area includes the city as well as nearby areas in Missouri and Illinois; with a population of 2,905,893, it is the largest in Missouri and one of the largest in the United States. St. Louis was founded in 1764 by Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau and named after Louis IX of France. Claimed first by the French, who settled mostly east of the Mississippi River, the region in which the city stands was ceded to Spain following France's defeat in the Seven Years' War. Its territory east of the Mississippi was ceded to the Kingdom of Great Britain, the victor. The area of present-day Missouri was part of Spanish Louisiana from 1762 until 1803.
Named for St. Louis (King Louis IX of France), patron saint of King Louis XV.
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Organized August 22, 1876, under the 1875 Constitution of the State of Missouri. Until that date, St. Louis City and St. Louis County were one entity. After that time, St. Louis City became its own entity, maintaining its own courthouse and records
Prior to the arrival of French explorers in 1673 the area that would become St. Louis was a major center of the
Mississippian mound builders. The presence of numerous mounds, now almost all destroyed, earned the later city the
nickname of "Mound City". European exploration of the area had begun nearly a century before the city was founded.
Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette, both French, traveled through the Mississippi River valley in 1673, and five
years later, La Salle claimed the entire valley for France. He called it "Louisiana" after King Louis XIV; the
French also called their region "Illinois Country."
In 1699 the French established a settlement at Cahokia, across the Mississippi River from what is now St. Louis.
They founded other early settlements downriver at Kaskaskia, Prairie du Pont, and Fort de Chartres, Illinois, and
Sainte Genevieve. In 1703, Catholic priests established a small mission at what is now St. Louis. The mission was
later moved across the Mississippi, but the small river at the site (now a drainage channel near the southern
boundary of the City of St. Louis) still bears the name "River Des Peres" (French Rivi?e des p?es, River of the
Fathers).
In 1763, Pierre Lacl?e de Liguest, his 13-year-old "stepson" Auguste Chouteau, and a small band of men traveled up
the Mississippi from New Orleans to found a post to take advantage of trade coming downstream by the Missouri River.
In November, they landed a few miles downstream of the river's confluence with the Missouri River at a site where
wooded limestone bluffs rose forty feet above the river. The men returned to Fort du Chartres for the winter, but in
February, Lacl?e sent Chouteau and thirty men to begin construction at the new site, laid out in a grid pattern as
an imitation of New Orleans.
St. Louis was a river city, and it therefore developed in response to its relationship to the river. Development,
particularly economic development, clustered around the settlement's Mississippi River bank on what was called "the
levee" and is now called "the landing." This long, smooth bank of land, which would later be paved with cobblestone,
sloped into the river at an incline that was gradual enough to permit the river vessels of the time to beach onto it
in order to be unloaded and loaded. All products at this time were shipped to and from New Orleans, orienting St.
Louis' 18th-century trade north-south.
The settlement began to grow quickly after word arrived that the 1763 Treaty of Paris had given Britain all the land
east of the Mississippi. Frenchmen who had earlier settled to the river's east moved across the water to "Lacl?e's
Village." Other early settlements were established nearby at Saint Charles, the independent village of Carondelet
(later annexed by St. Louis and now the southernmost part of the current City), Fleurissant (renamed Saint Ferdinand
by the Spaniards and now Florissant), and Portage des Sioux. In 1765, St. Louis was made the capital of Upper
Louisiana.
From 1766 to 1768, St. Louis was governed by the French lieutenant governor, Louis Saint Ange de Bellerive, who was
appointed not by French or Spanish authorities, but by the leading residents of St. Louis. After 1768, St. Louis was
governed by a series of governors appointed by Spanish authorities, whose administration continued even after
Louisiana was secretly returned to France in 1800 by the Treaty of San Ildefonso. The town's population was then
about a thousand. During the period when commandants appointed by Spanish authorities governed St. Louis, meetings
of leading residents were also held from time to time, and "syndics" were sometimes elected to carry out certain
governmental tasks.
In 1780 St. Louis was attacked by the British during the American Revolution. A combined Spanish and French Creole
force protected the city.
Apotheosis of Saint Louis, a bronze statue of the city's namesake on horseback, was widely used as a symbol of the
city before construction of the Gateway Arch.St. Louis was acquired from France by the United States under President
Thomas Jefferson in 1803, as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The transfer of power from Spain was made official in a
ceremony called "Three Flags Day." On March 8, 1804, the Spanish flag was lowered and the French one raised. On
March 10, the French flag was replaced by the United States flag. Until the 1820s French continued to be one of the
major spoken and written languages in St. Louis, along with English.
St. Louis first became legally incorporated as a town on November 9, 1809, though it elected its first municipal
legislators (called trustees) in 1808. The Lewis and Clark Expedition left the St. Louis area in May 1804, reached
the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1805, and returned on 23 September 1806. Both Lewis and Clark lived in St. Louis
after the expedition. Many other explorers, settlers, and trappers (such as Ashley's Hundred) would later take a
similar route to the West.
After Missouri became a state in 1821, St. Louis was incorporated as a city on December 9, 1822. A U. S. arsenal was
constructed at St. Louis in 1827.
The steamboat era began in St. Louis on July 27, 1817, with the arrival of the Zebulon M. Pike. Steamboats signified
significant progress in river trade, as steam power permitted much more efficient and dependable river
transportation. Unlike the hand-propelled barges and keel boats that preceded the steamboat as the choice vehicle of
Mississippi River trade, steamboats could travel upriver, and against the current, just as easily as downriver.
Rapids north of the city made St. Louis the northernmost navigable port for many large boats. The Pike and her
sisters soon transformed St. Louis into a bustling boom town, commercial center, and inland port. By the 1830s, it
was common to see more than 150 steamboats at the St. Louis levee at one time. By the 1850s, St. Louis had become
the largest U. S. city west of Pittsburgh, and the second-largest port in the country, with a commercial tonnage
exceeded only by New York.
In 1836 the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce was founded. It was one of the oldest Chambers of Commerce in the United
States. Along the way, it has been involved with projects as diverse as securing funding for Charles Lindbergh's
historic 1927 transatlantic flight (thus the naming of the plane "The Spirit of St. Louis") and rallying community
support for the design, funding and construction of St. Louis' famed Gateway Arch. The current chamber is now called
the St. Louis Regional Chamber of Commerce, representing the Bi-State region. The Regional Chamber and Growth
Association organization is directed by Richard Fleming.
Immigrants flooded into St. Louis after 1840, particularly from Germany, Bohemia, and Ireland, the last driven by a
potato famine. During Reconstruction, rural Southern blacks flooded into St. Louis as well, seeking better
opportunity. The population of St. Louis grew from less than 20,000 in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to more than 160,000
by 1860. At this time, public transit developed in order to effectively transport the numbers of new residents in
the city. Omnibuses began to service St. Louis in 1843, and in 1859, St. Louis' first streetcar tracks were laid.
Later in the 19th century, Italian immigrants began to arrive in the city and farming areas. They helped expand
winemaking to the Rolla area.
Two disasters occurred in 1849: a cholera epidemic killed nearly one-tenth of the population, and a fire destroyed
numerous steamboats and a large portion of the city. These disasters led to political action: old cemeteries were
removed to the outskirts of the town; sinkholes were filled and swamps drained; water and sewer public utilities
started; and a new building code required structures to be built of stone or brick. Particularly after the 1849
fire, St. Louis' population decentralization westward accelerated, a pattern of migration and development that
continues today.
In the first half of the 19th century, a second channel developed in the Mississippi River at St. Louis. An island
("Bloody Island") formed between the two channels, and a smaller island ("Duncan's Island") developed below St.
Louis. It was feared that the levee at St. Louis might be left high and dry, and federal assistance was sought and
obtained. Under the supervision of Robert E. Lee, levees were constructed on the Illinois side to direct water
toward the Missouri side and eliminate the second channel. Bloody Island was joined to the land on the Illinois
side, and Duncan's Island was washed away.
Militarily, the Civil War barely touched St. Louis; the area saw only a few skirmishes, in which Union forces
prevailed. However, the war shut down trade with the South, as Union troops blockaded the Mississippi River from
1861 through the end of the war. Trade in St. Louis declined to about one-third its average, as the economy of the
South, one of the markets St. Louis depended on, was devastated. Missouri was nominally a slave state, but its
economy did not depend on slavery. It remained loyal to the Union throughout the Civil War. The arsenal at St. Louis
was used during the war to construct ironclad ships for the Union, and shipbuilding continued at the Port of St.
Louis even into the latter half of the 20th century.
Eads Bridge, the first road and rail bridge to cross the Mississippi River, was completed in 1874.
On August 22, 1876 the City of St. Louis voted to secede from St. Louis County and become an independent city. At
that time the County was primarily rural and sparsely populated, and the fast-growing City did not want to spend its
tax dollars on infrastructure and services for the inefficient county; the move also allowed some in St. Louis
government to increase their political power. This decision later haunted the City, as the results of that
separation are still problematic today. In 1884, St. Louis hosted the first World's Fair in the US.
As St. Louis grew and prospered during the late 19th and early 20th century, the city produced a number of notable
people in the fields of business and literature. The Ralston-Purina company (headed by the Danforth Family) was
headquartered in the city. Anheuser-Busch, the world's largest brewery, remains a fixture of the city's economy. The
City was home to International Shoe, the Brown Shoe Company, and the St. Louis Division of the Curtiss-Wright
Aircraft Company. Several important aircraft were built or first tested at St. Louis, including the CD-25 Coupe
business aircraft (later the AT-9 Jeep in wartime service), the CW-20 twin-engine airliner, the C-76 Caravan, and
the C-46 Commando of the Second World War.
St. Louis was also one of the cities to see a pioneering brass era automobile company, the Success; despite its low
price, the company did not live up to its name.
Residents or natives notable in literature included poets Sara Teasdale, Marianne Moore, and T. S. Eliot; writers
Kate Chopin and William Burroughs; and playwright Tennessee Williams.
St. Louis is one of several cities claiming the world's first skyscraper. The Wainwright Building, a 10-story
structure designed by Louis Sullivan and built in 1892, still stands at Chestnut and Seventh Streets. Today it is
used by the State of Missouri as a government office building.
In 1893 Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication here.
In 1896, one of the deadliest and most destructive tornadoes in U. S. history struck St. Louis and East St. Louis,
IL, leaving a mile-wide continuous swath of destroyed homes, factories, mills, saloons, hospitals, schools, parks,
churches, and railroad yards. Killing more than 255, with damages adjusted for inflation (1997 USD), it was one of
the costliest tornadoes in U. S. history with an estimated $2.9 billion in losses. Several other tornadoes have hit
the city, including in 1927 (79 killed, 550 injured) and 1959 (21 killed, 345 injured).
By the time of the 1900 census, St. Louis was the fourth-largest city in the country. In 1904, the city hosted its
second World's Fair, which led the Olympic Games to be moved from Chicago, originally selected to host the games, to
St. Louis to coincide with the Fair. With these games, the United States became the first English-speaking country
to host the Olympics. Citizens of St. Louis still look back fondly on the events of 1904; there were several events
held in 2004 to commemorate the centennial.
St. Louis developed a lively immigrant gang culture by the early 20th century, leading up to much bootlegging
activity and gang violence. One gang leader, from an Irish part of the city referred to as "Kerry Patch" was named
"Jelly Roll" Hogan. Hogan's gang is mentioned in Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. In the 1920s there were
shoot outs on Lindell Boulevard between Hogan's Gang and the gang known as Egan's Rats. A priest was brought in to
broker peace between the gangs in 1923, but this truce only lasted a few months before two more people were killed
in a public shoot out. In 1923, Egan's Rats made off with $2.4 million in bonds from a mail truck. Hogan during this
time was a state representative. He was elected in 1916, eventually became a state senator, and spent forty years in
elected office. The Kerry Patch is now part of the Old North St. Louis neighborhood, with a different ethnic
population.
Although St. Louis did not segregate people on street cars like other cities, racial discrimination in housing was
commonplace, and discrimination in employment was not uncommon before World War II. During World War II, the NAACP
successfully campaigned, through protests and picket lines, to persuade the Federal government to allow African
Americans to work in war plants. Some 16,000 jobs were gained in this way. State court rulings and local civil
rights campaigns in the two decades after the war challenged the legality of race-based restrictions on real estate
ownership and opened clerical positions in local banks, etc. that had been more common prior to WWII.
St. Louis, as did many other Midwestern cities, experienced major expansion in the early 20th century due to the
formation of many industrial companies and reached its peak population at the 1950 census. The Gateway Arch was
built in the mid-1960s. In January 1999, the city hosted Pope John Paul II for a day. In the postwar era,
suburbanization in conjunction with the GI Bill, interstate highway construction, and changes in housing preferences
shifted the population out of the city and into newly formed suburbs. Although the overall population of the St.
Louis MSA has always been growing, the St. Louis city population itself decreased for decades, especially after job
losses due to restructuring of railroad and other industries.
Recently, there has been revitalization in Downtown St. Louis and along a corridor extending to the west through
Midtown and the Central West End neighborhoods. The St. Louis Cardinals' new Busch Stadium opened in 2006. Ballpark
Village would have been built where northern half of the former Busch Stadium stood, but those plans have been put
on hold. For several years, the Washington Avenue Loft District has been gentrifying with an expanding corridor
along Washington Avenue from the Edward Jones Dome westward almost two dozen blocks. Revitalization continues,
including new construction, as the corridor extends to the west to Forest Park.
Because of the major upturn in urban revitalization, St. Louis received the World Leadership Award for urban renewal
in 2006. In 2006 the U. S. Census Bureau reported St. Louis had a net population gain of 5,648 from the 2000
Census, to 353,837, the first gain the city has had since 1950. However, since then, the State of Missouri released
census estimates projecting the city will lose 3,000 residents by 2030.
As reported by the Census Bureau, St. Louis has a total area of 66 square miles (170 km2), of which 62 square miles (160 km2) is land and 4.1 square miles (11 km2) (6.2%) is water.
The city is built primarily on bluffs and terraces that rise 100-200 feet above the western banks of the Mississippi
River, just south of the Missouri-Mississippi confluence. Much of the area is a fertile and gently rolling prairie
that features low hills and broad, shallow valleys. Both the Mississippi River and the Missouri River have cut large
valleys with wide flood plains.
Limestone and dolomite of the Mississippian epoch underlies the area and much of the city is a karst area, with
numerous sinkholes and caves, although most of the caves have been sealed shut; many springs are visible along the
riverfront. Significant deposits of coal, brick clay, and millerite ore were once mined in the city, and the
predominant surface rock, the St. Louis Limestone, is used as dimension stone and rubble for construction.
The St. Louis Geologic fault is exposed along the bluffs and was the source of several historic minor earthquakes;
it is part of the St. Louis Anticline which has some petroleum and natural gas deposits outside of the city. St.
Louis is also just north of the New Madrid Seismic Zone which in 1811-12 produced a series of earthquakes that are
the largest known in the contiguous United States. Seismologists estimate 90% probability of a magnitude 6.0
earthquake by 2040 and 7-10% probability of a magnitude 8.0, such tremors could create significant damage across a
large region of the central US including St. Louis.
The Missouri River forms the northern border of St. Louis County, exclusive of a few areas where the river has
changed its course. The Meramec River forms most of its southern border. To the east is the City and the Mississippi
River.
Bordering counties are as follows:
Louis County borders the City of St. Louis, which is independent from St. Louis County.
The St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) operate more than 75 schools, attended by more than 25,000 students, including several magnet schools.
SLPS operates under provisional accreditation from the state of Missouri and is under the governance of a state-appointed school board called
the Special Administrative Board, although a local board continues to exist without legal authority over the district. Since 2000, charter
schools have operated in the city of St. Louis using authorization from Missouri state law. These schools are sponsored by local institutions
or corporations and take in students from kindergarten through high school.[ In addition, several private schools exist in the city, and the
Archdiocese of St. Louis operates dozens of parochial schools in the city, including parochial high schools. The city also has several private
high schools, including secular, Catholic and Lutheran schools.
The city is home to two national research universities, Washington University in St. Louis and St. Louis University, as classified under the
Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has been ranked among the
top 10 medical schools in the country by US News & World Report for as long as the list has been published, and as high as second, in 2003 and
2004.
In addition to Catholic theological institutions such as Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis is home to three Protestant seminaries: Eden
Theological Seminary of the United Church of Christ, Covenant Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America, and Concordia
Seminary of the St. Louis-based Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.