History of St. Louis

Steamboats first arrived in St. Louis in 1818, improving connections with New Orleans and eastern markets. Missouri was admitted as a state in 1821, in which slavery was legal. The capital was moved from St. Louis to a more central location. St. Louis was incorporated as a city in 1822, and continued to see growth due to its port 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.

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. To this day, St Louis is the largest city of the former French Louisiana territory.

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. The St. Louis Arsenal constructed ironclads for the Union.

After the war, St. Louis profited via trade with the West, aided by the 1874 completion of the Eads Bridge, the first bridge so far downriver over the Mississippi. Industrial developments on both