St. Louis County is located in eastern Missouri. It is bounded by the City of St. Louis and the Mississippi River to the east, the Missouri River to the north, and the Meramec River to the south. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,004,125, making it the most populous county in Missouri, and was estimated to be 987,059 in 2023. Its county seat is Clayton, while the largest city is Florissant. The county is included in the St. Louis, MO–IL metropolitan statistical area.
After Great Britain took over former French territory east of the Mississippi River, many ethnic French colonists moved west. They settled the area of St. Louis County and founded the city of St. Louis in the late 1700s. The US acquired this territory in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase.
In 1877 residents of the City of St. Louis voted to separate from the county and become an independent city. In the 1960s, with growing suburban development of Greater St. Louis, the county's population overtook that of the city for the first time. Restructuring of industry resulted in job and population declines in the city, and the county has continued to expand.
Through the decades, changing conditions have led many business and political leaders to propose merging the city and county as a single government. In 2019, efforts to put the issue to a statewide vote failed to get on a ballot.
History
Colonial settlement and early government
During the 18th century, several European colonial settlements were established in the area that would become St. Louis County. French colonists moved from east of the Mississippi River after France ceded territory to Great Britain after losing the Seven Years' War. It also ceded much of its territory west of the River to Spain.
St. Louis was founded by Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau on February 14, 1764; they became major fur traders in the city.Cohn, 26. Founded in about 1767 was Carondelet, to the south. It was annexed by the city in 1871. Florissant, then known as St. Ferdinand, was established in 1785 about twelve miles northwest of St. Louis on a tributary of the Missouri River. During the 1790s, the very small settlements known as Creve Coeur and Point Labadie were built north and west of St. Louis.
Upon the sale and transfer of French Louisiana to the United States on October 1, 1804, President Thomas Jefferson suggested the territory retain the districts drawn by Spanish officials during their decades-long rule of the territory after an arrangement with the French.Cohn, 25. During this time, the first governing body of St. Louis County was established (following the earlier Spanish governors).Cohn, 27.
This government, called the Court of Quarter Sessions, was composed of Charles Gratiot, Auguste Chouteau, Jacques Clamorgan, and David DeLaunay, all ethnic French or French Canadians; the court held judicial, executive, and legislative power. On October 1, 1812, the District of St. Louis was renamed St. Louis County (exactly eight years after its establishment) during a federal reorganization of the Louisiana Territory's status.
Antebellum growth and early education After the transfer of Louisiana to the United States, the authority to grant incorporation to municipalities was delegated to the Territory and later was a state power.Cohn, 58. The first to gain municipal status in St. Louis County was St. Louis, which incorporated on November 9, 1809, under the territorial legislature. It gained city status on December 9, 1822. Only a handful of other municipal incorporations took place prior to the separation of the county and city: St. Ferdinand was granted incorporation in 1829 (and reincorporated as Florissant in 1843), while Bridgeton, a settlement along the Missouri River near Florissant, gained incorporation in 1843.
The towns of Pacific and Kirkwood grew substantially and incorporated in the 1850s, with their growth stimulated by construction of the Pacific Railroad (later the Missouri Pacific Railroad). Pacific, a community along the Meramec River first known as Franklin, straddles St. Louis and Franklin counties; it incorporated as Pacific in 1859. Kirkwood was settled in 1853 after Hiram Leffingwell and Richard Elliott platted and auctioned land along the railroad line; they named their settlement after James P. Kirkwood, who had planned the route of the railroad through the area.Berger Erwin, 7. Leffingwell organized the town as a planned suburb (the first west of the Mississippi). Kirkwood was granted incorporation by the state in 1865.
Other areas of the county began to be settled during this period but did not incorporate as towns.Cohn, 63. Among these were Chesterfield, which was settled in the 1820s in west St. Louis County. Gravois and Affton were settled in south St. Louis County in the 1850s and 1860s.
The first St. Louis Public Schools were established in the major city in the 1830s. It was a decade and more before some of the settlements of St. Louis County began providing public education.Thomas, 67. In 1854, the School District of Maplewood was established. It included all of today's Maplewood district, part of what became Webster Groves, Missouri, along the south and southwest, a large part of St. Louis in the east, and to the north up to Clayton Road. The first school, originally called the Washington Institute and later renamed as Maplewood High School, opened as a one-room stone building at the crossing of Manchester Road over the Missouri Pacific Railroad tracks. Another antebellum school district was Rock Hill, which provided a one-room school across from the Rock Hill Presbyterian Church until about 1870.Thomas, 122.
The first school in Florissant opened in 1819 under the direction of the Religious of the Sacred Heart, a Roman Catholic religious congregation.Davison, 61. The instructor, Rose Philippine Duchesne, was a French immigrant who has been described as "one of the foremost educators in the state of Missouri". A second school, initially an Indian school known as the St. Regis Academy, was operated for young boys from 1823 to 1829. The complex included the Jesuit St. Stanislaus Seminary, which continued to operate until 1971.Davison, 63. The earliest public school in Florissant was the St. Ferdinand School, which was authorized by the General Assembly in 1845 and operated until 1871 when the Florissant School District was formed.Davison, 67.
Government changes and early courthouses From 1813 to 1830, the county initiated several changes to its government. By an act of the territorial legislature, the Court of Quarter Sessions was succeeded by a panel of three judges of common pleas in 1813. Two years later, this panel was succeeded by a newly created county court in 1815, composed of justices of the peace elected from the county to three-month terms. The St. Louis County Circuit Court (established in 1815 as the judicial branch of the county) was given authority in 1816 over the executive and legislative affairs of the county, superseding the court of justices of the peace.
In 1821, a hybrid County and Probate Court was established and given executive and legislative control, and in 1830, its probate functions ceased. This County Court operated as the government of St. Louis County until public scandals encouraged the state legislature to abolish it and replace it in 1859 with a Board of Commissioners.
Sessions of the County Court and other county governing bodies were held in a variety of locations during this early period.Cohn, 36. The Court of Quarter Sessions held its first meeting in 1804 at a tavern in St. Louis, then regularly at a building at Third and Plum until 1817. The county seat moved that year to a newly built one-story log cabin on Third Street between Elm and Spruce, followed by a move to the brick Baptist Church at Third and Market in 1820.
The County Court established a commission in 1822 to study a permanent courthouse (previous facilities were rented). In 1823, Auguste Chouteau and John Baptiste Charles Lucas donated two tracts of land that formed a vacant square bounded by Broadway, Fourth, Chestnut, and Market.
Between the summer of 1826 and 1833, a low-roofed two-story brick structure was built fronting Fourth Street; this was the first permanent courthouse for St. Louis County. Within a few years, however, the building's size was inadequate for the county government's needs; the original building was left in place during construction on the new building, which began in 1839. This new courthouse, now known as the Old Courthouse, included a finished rotunda, dome, and west wing by 1843; the 1833 courthouse was demolished in 1851, and by 1856, the east wing of the new courthouse was complete.
Separation of St. Louis and St. Louis County During the antebellum period, some city leaders began to work to separate the city of St. Louis, the county's largest municipality, from the county. In 1843, a group of St. Louis city residents petitioned the state legislature to separate the two entities. The General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a referendum on the subject among county voters outside the city. This vote held on August 7, 1844, showed a majority of county voters opposed to separation.
Despite the vote, controversy continued and tension mounted between the county government and the city government during the 1840s and 1850s.William N. Cassella, Jr. "City-County Separation: The Great Divorce of 1876." Missouri Historical Society Bulletin. (January 1959). Much of the dispute involved the double taxation of city residents and their proportionally lesser representation in county government.Cohn, 28. The reform of 1859, in which the County Court was abolished by the state government and replaced by a Board of Commissioners, was in large part a reaction to city outcry over mismanagement of tax money. More than a name change, the reform expanded the size of the county government council to seven members, with four seats reserved for city representation (but the city at that time had roughly ten times the population of the county, so was still underrepresented in county government). The reform temporarily ameliorated the tensions. In 1863, the General Assembly restored the name of the county government to its former name of County Court.
Despite some reforms, controversy returned and grew during the 1860s. This was largely due to what city residents considered double taxation: by the county and the city for services effectively provided by the city alone. Several plans began to circulate during the late 1860s that would relieve this burden, including home rule status for St. Louis, further reorganization of the County Court to ensure greater representation, city-county government consolidation, and separation of the two entities. The General Assembly considered several plans during this period. In March 1871, it passed a further reorganization of the County Court; the new Court would have an presiding judge elected at-large, four seats reserved to be elected by city residents, and two seats for county residents.Cohn, 29. This reform, however, pleased virtually no one pushing for reform, and it made little practical difference in the operation of the county government.
A consolidation plan proceeded in the General Assembly in 1871, backed by city political leaders Anthony Ittner and Roderick E. Rombauer. The Missouri Republican newspaper strongly backed the approach, while the Missouri Democrat argued it would lead city leaders into corruption. The latter pressed for a separation plan, support for which was led by David H. Armstrong. The separation plan gained greater support when it became clear that the mistrust between city and county residents precluded consolidation. A citizen group known as the Taxpayers League formed in 1872 to advance the separation cause. City leaders looked to Baltimore, Maryland, which had separated from Baltimore County in 1853, as an example.