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

Early 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.

Post-Separation

Now detached from St. Louis City, the county at once sought a new seat of government. Existing communities such as Florissant and Kirkwood were considered but rejected as not being centrally located. Finally, a site on Hanley Road immediately west of the city-county boundary was chosen, on land donated chiefly by Ralph Clayton, a local farmer. The cornerstone for the new courthouse was laid in May 1878, and adjacent blocks carved out for the placement of other administrative buildings. This would provide the basis for the city of Clayton, though it was not incorporated until 1913.

Other cities were also established during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of them as suburban residences for upper- and middle-class individuals working in St. Louis. These included Webster Groves, University City, Wellston, Ladue, and Shrewsbury, among others; further to the southwest, meanwhile, the line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad provided an origin for such towns as Eureka and Pacific.

20th and 21st Centuries

With the greater space available for residential living, St. Louis County's population surged after 1900 as more and more people moved out of its namesake city into the suburban cities nearby. It doubled in size from 50,000 in 1900 to 100,000 in 1920, then more than doubled to 211,000 in 1930. The rate of increase slowed after this point, but the county still grew by tens of thousands (or more) each succeeding decade during the mid-20th century. A second, smaller surge followed after World War II, fueled by the desire of middle-class families to escape, first, the overcrowding and high real-estate prices of St. Louis, and later, especially during the 1960s, the growing problems of urban decay, such as poverty, crime, and racial tensions. The 1970 census showed that for the first time, St. Louis County, now with a population of just over 950,000, had overtaken St. Louis City in size.

The rapid expansion led a number of new communities to incorporate themselves as cities or villages as quickly as possible, to establish their own territory and identity and provide services for residents. This was especially the case in the north-central part of the county, where a mosaic of cities, most very small in land area and population, exists to this day. Nonetheless, many residents continued to live in unincorporated areas, and the county government in Clayton took more and more responsibility for extending infrastructure to them as well. A county-wide public library system was formed in 1946, followed by a police department in 1955, and such services as trash pickup and road maintenance were expanded as well.

The county's population growth slowed dramatically after 1970, as the movement of white, middle-class St. Louisans into the suburbs had by now largely ceased. In fact, in some areas the growth rate turned negative, as African-Americans began moving into some of the "inner-ring" suburbs just outside the city, and other residents began moving farther out: into Franklin, Jefferson, and St. Charles Counties, and into the less-populated western parts of St. Louis County itself. For these reasons, the county's growth practically stagnated by 2000; after hitting a high of 1,016,000 in that year's census, it declined slightly for the first time at the 2010 census, to a population of just under a million.

One persistent question in the early 21st century has been the county's future organizationally. Some leaders have suggested consolidating the smaller municipalities into a few larger cities in order to provide local services in a more efficient manner, though this does not appear likely to happen in the near future; a consolidation proposal was rejected by the Supreme Court in 1988. Also, given the declining size and resource base of St. Louis City itself, campaigns have begun to reunify the city and county, though ironically, most of the support for this is now found in the city, while county residents are now overwhelmingly opposed to a merger. Given the county's greater population, this too seems unlikely to succeed.

During the 2010s, St. Louis City and County were a prominent epicenter of urban looting and violence associated with the Black Lives Matter movement, especially after the shooting death of Michael Brown by a member of the Ferguson Police Department in 2014, which resulted in serious rioting throughout much of North St. Louis County. Ferguson and neighboring communities are still suffering from the long-term economic damage caused by these events, and simmering racial tensions continue in some of these areas.