St. Louis County, Missouri

Saint Louis County (typically abbreviated as St. Louis County) is a county bordering on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in eastern Missouri. It is named for, but does not include, the city of St. Louis, which lies directly to its east. Clayton is the county seat, and Florissant is the largest city. It had a population of 998,954 at the 2010 census, making it the largest county in Missouri and the 40th-largest county in the United States by population.

One of the state's five original counties, the jurisdiction has existed since 1812, and has been separate from St. Louis City since 1877, when the city voted to withdraw from the county and become an independent city. Since the mid-20th century, it has been heavily suburban in character and is now significantly more populous than St. Louis itself. It is the most significant part of the St. Louis metropolitan area.

The county is roughly divided into three areas: North County (the part north and east of Interstate 70), South County (the part south and east of Interstate 44) and West County (the part between 70 and 44, which is the most populous).

History

Prior to European settlement, the greater St. Louis area was dominated by a succession of Native American cultures, most notably the Mississippian culture from around 900 to 1500 AD. The most notable evidence they left behind was the large number of earthen mounds that dotted this part of the Mississippi Valley.

The first instance of European exploration was the expedition of Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673, as they sailed down the Mississippi River on behalf of France. The French explorer Robert-Cavalier de La Salle followed in 1682, formally claiming the entire region on behalf of his country and giving it the name of "Louisiana."

Although a few outposts were established on the east bank of the Mississippi in the early 18th century, settlement in the St. Louis area did not begin until 1764, when the city of St. Louis was itself laid out as a trading post by Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau (by which time all of Louisiana west of the river had been ceded to Spain). Though it would remain the largest and most prominent of the fledgling communities in the region, others soon followed--Carondelet in 1767 (later annexed to St. Louis), and St. Ferdinand (later Florissant) sometime between 1772 and 1786. Further west, Creve Coeur appears to have existed sometime before 1796.

By the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the Spanish colonial authorities had subdivided the Louisiana Territory into districts, with the area immediately south of the lower Missouri River being included in the district of St. Louis (named for the city). Following the handover to the Americans, these districts were generally retained, and when the Missouri Territory was organized on October 1, 1812, the St. Louis district became one of the future state's five original counties (the others being Cape Girardeau, New Madrid, St. Charles, and Ste. Genevieve). Upon its formation, the county extended as far west as the Osage River in central Missouri, but these outlying portions were gradually carved into new counties, and it had been reduced to something resembling its current boundaries by the time of the Civil War.

During the antebellum era, the city of St. Louis was the economic hub of the county and by far its largest community, in addition to being the county seat. The rich floodplains along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers were settled at an early date for purposes of agriculture, while the more rugged uplands to the southwest were only slowly populated. Owing to the city's rapid growth, and the overcrowding and strain on infrastructure that resulted, the first signs of suburban development were visible as early as the mid-19th century: the city of Kirkwood was laid out in 1852 along the newly-constructed Missouri Pacific Railroad (the first planned suburb west of the Mississippi), and others would follow in subsequent years. Still, much of the county remained a rural backwater; in the 1860 census, 160,000 of its 190,000 residents lived in St. Louis itself.

By this time, many in St. Louis were in favor of making their community an independent city, legally separate from the county. This stemmed partly from the fact that the city was large enough to provide all county services on its own, making county taxes an unnecessary burden, and partly from the belief that it was underrepresented in the county government in favor of rural residents. Following the Civil War, an additional consideration was the fact that St. Louis was largely Republican in its politics, while the rest of the county favored the Democratic Party. Most outside the city opposed its separation from the county, fearing it would leave them with an insufficient tax base and in an impoverished condition. Nonetheless, at the state constitutional convention in 1875 (by which time St. Louis had over 90% of the county's population), a plan for separation of city and county was approved; the city voted in favor of the measure in 1876--the rest of the county voted overwhelmingly against it--and in March 1877 formal separation took place.