City of St. Louis history

A succession of Spanish lieutenant-governors followed St Ange until the transfer of the territory to American dominion in 1804.

The town's first newspaper, the Missouri Gazette, was founded in 1808 by Joseph Charless.

Frederick Billon, who first saw St Louis in 1809, described the town as virtually unchanged in over forty years.

In 1811 the built-up section of the town was defined for municipal purposes as extending from the foot of the present Franklin Avenue west to what is now Broadway and south to Mill Creek, thence east to the river.

Flint was of the opinion that the Americans had given the town an economic boost following the War of 1812.

Frame houses began to replace log ones after the American occupation began, but the first brick house, for William C. Carr, was not built until 1813.

1816 witnessed the first physical extension of the town through new subdivisions or additions.

Their enterprise stimulated the lead and fur trades and general business activity to such an extent that, he claimed later, over 100 houses were built here in 1818.

Several other towns grew up around St Louis, and in 1821 their combined populations totaled 9,732 persons, with St Louis containing about 5,500 of this number.

The State Legislature passed an act to incorporate St Louis as a City on December 9, 1822, with a mayor and nine aldermen.

St Louis incorporated as a city in 1823.

An ordinance passed in 1826 adopted the Philadelphia system of street names, giving numbers to the north-south streets and calling the east-west ones by the names of trees.

In 1829, Seventh Street was widened to sixty feet and Fourth Street was surveyed as far as Lombard Street.

A description of the City in 1837 states that there was no hotel, store, or saloon in the City west of Fourth Street, nor any house over two stories high.

The City Directory of 1838 reflected the City's prosperity in this way: "Vast numbers of new buildings had caused a significant spread in business locations, thereby changing the complexion of former residential neighborhoods," particularly within what later became the central business district.

The fur trade declined sharply after 1840, but by then the city had established its importance as a river port.

As mentioned earlier, the first public transit was an omnibus line established in 1843.

The City streets were first illuminated by gas in 1846; in that same year the police department was organized, and the Mercantile Library was incorporated.

In the early 1850's, the first public sewer was built, and the construction of railroads began.

Construction began in 1852 of the first railroad west of the Mississippi.

In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, St Louis had become a mature City having undergone the transition from a town entirely dependent upon river traffic to a commercial metropolis with both river and rail connections.

During the period of the war, the Metropolitan Police system was established in 1861, followed four years later by the creation of a paid fire department.

In 1866, immediately after the war, a group of St Louis citizens founded the Missouri Historical Society.

Tower Grove Park was first proposed in 1868 by Henry Shaw, who agreed to donate it to the City on the condition that St Louis would expend $360,000 for its improvement and reserve a 200 foot wide strip around it for leasing, the proceeds of which were to be used for the maintenance of Shaw's Garden.

In 1907, this company absorbed the last remaining independent line, the St Louis and Suburban Railway Company. It is interesting to note that this line began as a narrow gauge steam railway line in 1869, running from Grand and Olive to Florissant through Wellston and Ferguson.

The history of Forest Park had its beginning in 1872 when Hiram W. Leffingwell and others secured passage of a legislative act authorizing the purchase of 1,000 acres or more for a public park.

The 1874 construction of the Eads Bridge made St Louis an important link in the continuing growth of transcontinental rail travel--but came too late to prevent Chicago from overtaking it as the largest rail hub in the nation.

Forest Park was considered as an outer park at this time because the City was not built up much beyond Grand Avenue. Its formal opening occurred in 1876 after extensive landscaping work in its eastern portion.

The St Louis Art Museum was founded in 1879 as the St Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, an independent entity within Washington University.

An ordinance enacted in 1884 authorized the use of the streets for the sale of electricity on payment of a five percent gross receipts tax to the City.

An aid to the establishment of a major street system occurred in 1891 when the State Legislature passed an enabling act authorizing St Louis to establish boulevards by ordinance.

It took over operation of Eads Bridge and Merchants Bridge in 1893, and the railway yards.

St Louis Union Station was, when it opened in 1894, the largest single-level passenger train terminal in the world.

By the turn of the century, St Louis began to demonstrate the civic consciousness and leadership which led to the creation of the World's Fair of 1904.

The City's population in 1910 climbed to 687,029, retaining the position of St Louis as the fourth largest city in the United States.

A revolutionary change in the City's transit system began during the 1920's.

A more ambitious system was organized in 1923 by the Peoples Motorbus Company, which soon became a serious competitor of the United Railways Company.

These were later supplemented by another bond issue in 1934.

A bond issue was passed in 1944 to provide for a post-war public works program similar to the W. P. A . which had benefited the City during the thirties.

In 1958, East St Louis was named an “All American City” by the National Civic League, having developed an industrial core with railroad-related industries and warehouses, and achieving a population of over 82,000 residents.

Federal funds were finally approved and work began in the early 1960's .

The redevelopment of the eastern portion of the Central Business District, which began with the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, was accelerated in 1962 by approval of a bond issue authorizing the City's share of the Civic Center Redevelopment project.