St. Louis (English /seɪnt ˈluːɪs/ , /sænt luwi/ French: Saint-Louis or St-Louis /sɛ̃ lwi/ ) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri, located near the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Missouri River. St. Louis is at the center of the largest metropolitan area in Missouri. Sometimes written as Saint Louis , the city is named for King Louis IX of France. It is separate from St. Louis County, which borders much of the city itself.
St. Louis was the fourth largest single city in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, although the city proper has since slipped to 52nd. The 1904 World's Fair and 1904 Olympic Games, the first ever held in the United States, were both held in St. Louis. The St. Louis region is home to some of the country's largest privately-held corporations, including Enterprise Rent-A-Car, McBride & Son Homes, Inc., Graybar, Scottrade, Edward Jones, and is also home to some of the largest public corporations, including Emerson, Energizer, Anheuser Busch-InBev, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, Purina, Express Scripts, Charter Communications, Monsanto, and Wachovia Securities.
The city has many nicknames, the most popular being "Gateway City", as it is seen as the Eastern/Western US dividing mark. St. Louis is also called "Gateway to the West" on behalf of the many people who migrated west through St. Louis via the Missouri River (first leg of the Oregon Trail) and other wagon trails.
St. Louis lies at the heart of Greater St. Louis, a metropolitan area of nearly three million people in both Missouri and Illinois. The Illinois portion is commonly known as the Metro-East. The Greater St. Louis area was the 16th largest metro area in the U.S. as of the July 2007 US Census estimate, with 2,871,421 people.
History
Main article: History of St. Louis, MissouriPrior 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, two French explorers, 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 Rivière des pères , River of the Fathers).
In 1763, Pierre Laclède 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, Laclède 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 loaded and unloaded. 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 "Laclède'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.
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. 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 . The city elected its first municipal legislators (called trustees) in 1808. 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 persecution from the English and secondary a potato famine. During Reconstruction, rural Southern blacks flooded into St. Louis as well
Windows on Washington Information: Reviews, Map, Calendar - STLtoday ...
Windows on Washington St Louis: Dr. Donald M. Suggs, Honorary Chair Dot Soldavini, Chair Orvin Kimbrough, Voices' 2009 Community Superhero
Windows On Washington - Downtown - Saint Louis, MO
Category: Caterers [Edit] Neighborhood: Downtown 701 N 15th St Fl 10 Saint Louis, MO 63103 (314) 241-5555
Windows-on-washington | CLC Photography - St. Louis Photographer Blog
CLC Photography - St. Louis Photographer Blog
Built St. Louis: 1601 Washington Avenue
November 2008. May 2003: 1601 Washington Avenue. Windows on Washington Originally: St. Louis Transit Company Architect: unknown - 1903 The building was originally a power plant for ...
St. Louis' Washington Avenue - Shopping on Washington Avenue in ...
If your image of shopping in downtown St. Louis conjures up images of dark empty streets and bargain shops with bars on the windows, then you haven't strolled down Washington ...
Windows On Washington Reception | CLC Photography - St. Louis ...
Congratulations to Jennifer & Caley! October 13, 2007 Wedding Ceremony: - Shrine of St. Joseph - St. Louis, MO Wedding Reception: - Windows On
Windows Lofts :: 1601 Washington Avenue - St. Louis Lofts
St Louis Lofts in the heart of downtown Saint Louis, Missouri
Windows On Washington : Membership Services Directory
Windows On Washington. 1601 Washington Ave. St. Louis, MO 63103 Phone: (314) 241-5555 Fax: (314) 241-3293 Public Email: joe.wand@wowbanquets.com
WOW Banquets, Windows On Washington, Windows Off Washington, St. Louis ...
WOW Banquets has two facilities in St. Louis, Missouri; Windows On Washington and Windows Off Washington that have six unique dining rooms catering events such as weddings, proms ...
Built St. Louis: 1501 Washington Avenue
November 2008. March 2001. 1501 Washington Avenue. Windows on Washington Originally: Roberts, Johnson and Rand Shoe Company Architect: Theodore C. Link, 1910