19th century

19th century

An illustrated map by F. Graf entitled Saint Louis in 1896

South Broadway after a May 27, 1896, tornado

The city elected its first municipal legislators (called trustees) in 1808. Steamboats first arrived in St. Louis in 1818, improving connections with New Orleans and eastern markets. Missouri was admitted as a state in 1821. St. Louis was incorporated as a city in 1822, and continued to develop largely due to its busy port and trade connections. Slaves worked in many jobs on the waterfront as well as on the riverboats. Given the city's location close to the free state of Illinois and others, some slaves escaped to freedom. Others, especially women with children, sued in court in freedom suits, and several prominent local attorneys aided slaves in these suits. About half the slaves achieved freedom in hundreds of suits before the American Civil War.
Immigrants from Ireland and Germany arrived in St. Louis in significant numbers starting in the 1840s, and the population of St. Louis grew from less than 20,000 in 1840, to 77,860 in 1850, to more than 160,000 by 1860. By the mid-1800s, St. Louis had a greater population than New Orleans.
Settled by many Southerners in a slave state, the city was split in political sympathies and became polarized during the American Civil War. In 1861, 28 civilians were killed in a clash with Union troops. The war hurt St. Louis economically, due to the Union blockade of river traffic to the south on the Mississippi River. The St. Louis Arsenal constructed ironclads for the Union Navy.
After the war, St. Louis profited via trade with the West, aided by the 1874 completion of the Eads Bridge, named for its architect. Industrial developments on both banks of the river were linked by the bridge, the first in the mid-west over the Mississippi River. The bridge connects St. Louis, Missouri to East St. Louis, Illinois. The Eads Bridge became an iconic image of the city of St. Louis, from the time of its erection until 1965 when the Gateway Arch Bridge was constructed. The bridge crosses the St. Louis riverfront between Laclede's Landing, to the north, and the grounds of the Gateway Arch, to the south. Today the road deck has been restored, allowing vehicular and pedestrian traffic to cross the river. The St. Louis MetroLink light rail system has used the rail deck since 1993. An estimated 8,500 vehicles pass through it daily.
On August 22, 1876, the city of St. Louis voted to secede from St. Louis County and become an independent city. Industrial production continued to increase during the late 19th century. Major corporations such as the Anheuser-Busch brewery and Ralston-Purina company were established. St. Louis also was home to Desloge Consolidated Lead Company and several brass era automobile companies, including the Success Automobile Manufacturing Company;^[18] St. Louis is the site of the Wainwright Building, an early skyscraper built in 1892 by noted architect Louis Sullivan.

20th century

The Government Building at the 1904 World's Fair

In 1904, the city hosted the 1904 World's Fair and the 1904 Summer Olympics, becoming the first non-European city to host the Olympics.^[19] Permanent facilities and structures remaining from the fair are Forest Park and associated structures within its boundaries: the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri History Museum, as well as Tower Grove Park and the Botanical Gardens.
In the aftermath of emancipation of slaves following the Civil War, social and racial discrimination in housing and employment were common in St. Louis. Starting in the 1910s, many property deeds included racial or religious restrictive covenants against new immigrants and migrants. In the first half of the 20th century, St. Louis was a destination for many African Americans in the Great Migration from the rural South seeking better opportunities. During World War II, the NAACP campaigned to integrate war factories, and restrictive covenants were prohibited in 1948 by the Shelley v. Kraemer U.S. Supreme Court decision, which case originated as a lawsuit in St. Louis. In 1964 civil rights activists protested at the construction of the Gateway Arch to publicize their effort to gain entry for African Americans into the skilled trade unions, where they were underrepresented. The Department of Justice filed the first suit against the unions under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In the first part of the century, St. Louis had some of the worst air pollution in the United States. In April, 1940 the city banned the use of soft coal mined in nearby states. The city hired inspectors to ensure only hard anthracite was burned. by 1946 the city had reduced air pollution by about three-quarters.^[20]

View of the Arch (completed 1965) from Laclede's Landing, the only remaining section of St. Louis's commercial riverfront.

De jure educational segregation continued into the 1950s, and de facto segregation continued into the 1970s, leading to a court challenge and interdistrict desegregation agreement. Students have been bussed mostly from the city to county school districts to have opportunities for integrated classes, although the city has created magnet schools to attract students.^[21]
St. Louis, like many Midwestern cities, expanded in the early 20th century due to industrialization, which provided jobs to new generations of immigrants and migrants from the South. It reached its peak population of 856,796 at the 1950 census.^[22] Suburbanization from the 1950s through the 1990s dramatically reduced the city's population, as did restructuring of industry and loss of jobs. The effects of suburbanization were exacerbated by the relatively small geographical size of St. Louis due to its earlier decision to become an independent city, and it lost much of its tax base. During the 19th and 20th century, most major cities aggressively annexed surrounding areas as residential development occurred away from the central city; however, St. Louis was unable to do so.
In the 21st century, the city of St. Louis contains only 11% of its total metropolitan population, while among the top 20 metro areas in the United States, the central cities contain an average of 24% of total metropolitan area population. Although small increases in population have taken place in St. Louis during the early 2000s, overall the city lost population from 2000 to 2010. Immigration has continued, with the city attracting Vietnamese, Latinos from Mexico and Central America, and Bosnians, the latter forming the largest Bosnian community outside of Bosnia.
Several urban renewal projects were built in the 1950s, as the city worked to replace old and substandard housing. Some of these were poorly designed and resulted in problems, of which Pruitt-Igoe became a symbol of failure. It was torn down.
Since the 1980s, several revitalization efforts have focused on downtown St. Louis.

21st century

Urban revitalization continued in the new century. Gentrification has taken place in the Washington Avenue Historic District.^[23] In 2006, St. Louis received the World Leadership Award for urban renewal.^[24] In 2013 the US Census Bureau estimate that St. Louis had a population of 318,416.^[8]