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| St. Louis Apartment Locator Services : St. Louis Apartments |  | Contents | |
| Law and Government |
Saint 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.
The Lewis and Clark Expedition left the Saint Louis area in
May 1804, reached the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1805, and
returned on Sept. 23, 1806. Many other explorers, settlers,
and trappers (such as Ashley's Hundred) would later take a similar
route to the West.
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| The steamboat era began in Saint Louis on July 27, 1817, with
the arrival of the Zebulon M. Pike. Rapids north of the city
made Saint Louis the northernmost navigable port for many large
boats, and Pike and her sisters soon transformed St. Louis into
a bustling boomtown, commercial center, and inland port. By
the 1850s, Saint 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. |
| Missouri became a state in 1820. Saint Louis was incorporated
as a city on December 9, 1822. A U.S. arsenal was constructed
at Saint Louis in 1827. |
| Immigrants flooded into Saint Louis after 1840, particularly
from Germany, Bohemia and Ireland, the latter driven by an Old
World potato famine. The population of Saint Louis grew from
fewer than 20,000 in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to just over 160,000
by 1860. |
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.
In the first half of the 19th century, a second channel developed
in the Mississippi River at Saint Louis. An island ("Bloody
Island") formed between the two channels, and a smaller
island ("Duncan's Island") developed below Saint 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.
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Militarily, the Civil War (1861-1865) barely touched St. Louis;
the area saw only a few skirmishes in which Union forces prevailed.
But the war shut down trade with the South, devastating the
city's economy. Missouri was nominally a slave state, but its
economy did not depend on slavery, and it never seceded from
the Union. The arsenal at Saint Louis was used during the war
to construct ironclad ships for the Union.
On July 4, 1876 the City of Saint Louis voted to remove itself
from Saint Louis County and become Saint Louis City and Saint
Louis County. At that time the County was primarily rural and
sparsely populated, and the fast-growing City did not want to
spend their tax dollars on infastructure and services for the
inefficent county. This decision would gravely come back to
haunt the City as white flight with suburban development and
population migration outside the City limits would cost the
City millions of lost tax dollars and contribute to the City's
deterioration.
Saint Louis is one of several cities that claims to have 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 and is today used by
the State of Missouri as a government office building.
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