Central High School - Red and Black Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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- : ff: ...L -.ae , Lw. .l'I'IE E it W S83 arrival of newcomers, other churches were started. A Baptist Church of brick and an Episcopal Church of wood were erected. The Methodists held their church in the courthouse and the Presbyterians in the Circuit Court room. Education was not entirely neglected. ln 1808, at the foot of Market Street, the first English school was opened. Before that, in 1774, and again in l796. schools were started: but the French language was the only one taught. All these were private schools. More than thirty years passed before the first public school was established. St. Louis became a city in 1823! The charter was not adopted without a struggle. Of the one hundred and ninety-seven votes cast, ninety were against the charter. A property qualification restricted sufferage. Only white citizens of twenty-one years, who had paid a local tax, were allowed to vote. The limits of the new city were Seventh Street on the west, the Mill Creek on the south, and a line from Roy's tower on the north. The municipality of St. Louis got off to a good start. At the first election for Mayor, St. Louis polled 220 votes, William Carr Lane receiving 122 votes, Auguste Chouteau, 70 and M. P. Leduc, 28. The first mayor was a Pennsyl- vanian by birth and education. Mr. Lane's appeal for public improvement was not in vain. An engineer prepared a plan to grade and pave Main Street. One block was graded and paved the first year. It was the block from Market to Walnut, where Laclede, just sixty years before, had marked the trees for the center of trade and seat of government of the settlement he was about to found. A memorable event in the history of old St. Louis was the visit of Marquis de Lafayette, in 1825. Mr. Lane was then Mayor: he was a man of fine A Q nz , L 5 EUQL, l:ll:lQElEl:l,l,Tllgll2lii:lElj:l:lfD:i:l: all T WEPHUIIUCEQQD Usl31?Ui!SlfU.U.CKU5E1ilELUil3El35 . I 5 5 .'QQ?'ZlUi'El l:ll:El:l5l:I'Ul:lI:lil:f15U.El5EI5l:I i 3 I , H , , F su.f. . ,1.f f f , 3 ,, 3 3.1 I F fQQmSSD.uun.U.m:gu.usmiueu.f1,fH1 De'5.ZE1 ' XXX ' Q 'z E 2 2 iQ :': for-2.56 i'T'QgigggiguiSiSE'EbJZ:ig30G'5-1153? 'Q ,.TFwluC1l112'2S.s2iS.2GE2?l gi! , H C Tcfcniigfftouns una.: nn :Iwi loot Twenly-four

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sem..Tll-Im mmm :spawn Chouteau, Bernard Pratte, Edward Hempstead, Pierre Chouteau, and Alexander McNair. Later a mayor was substituted for the trustees. The city limits were set and laws were made. The laws may seem very peculiar to us, but we must remember that St. Louis was a very young city at that time. One of the laws required all dogs kept in the city to be registered on the books of the city register and to wear brass collars bearing the owner's name. Another required every house owner to buy two leather buckets to hang in the house in case of fire. St. Louis was not without its amusements. lt had a town orchestra that played at the many dances and picnics. The pioneer paid amusement was announced in 1812. This was a series of slight-of-hand performances by John Eugene Leistendorfer. He gave his performance twice a week for several months and made quite a fortune. The first post office was opened in St. Louis in 1805 by Mr. Rufus Easton. He kept his post office in his residence at Elm and Third streets for over six years, and when he grew tired of the work he turned it over to his brother-in- law who kept the office in his drug store. Mail was iirst carried on foot, later on horseback. The postage was very high, costing fifty cents to send a letter over 450 miles. It took several months for letters from the Atlantic coast to reach the city. Finally on September 20, 1836, it was announced that mail would be delivered daily. ln July, 1808, the first newspaper west of the Mississippi was printed in St. Louis, Mr. Joseph Charless, the printer, called his newspaper the Missouri Gazette. lt started out with 174 subscribers. lt was several years before the news arriving from the coast was plentiful enough to have a weekly newspaper. By l82l there were three weekly newspapers. For the first time the people of St. Louis were brought into close contact with the outside world. It was not until l8l2 that the first bricks were used. However, the first brick sidewalk was not laid until l82l. The narrow, unpaved streets proved a hindrance to trade. As a result, several ordinances were passed to pave the streets. The first street paving was laid at the foot of Market Street. Later Main Street was paved, and as time went on, all the streets in the business district were improved. Until 1826 the streets were given French names. When the names were changed, Market Street became the dividing line between northern and southern part of the city. The streets running east and west were named after trees, as Pine, Olive, Elm, and Locust, while those running north and south were given numbers as First, Second, and Third. Market Street was so named because of a Market which stood at the foot of the street. Some fifteen years later a large market house and town hall was erected on the site of the old Place d'Armes between Market and Walnut. The crowning glory of this period was the Roman Catholic Cathedral. lt was a very elegant building, erected by the good Bishop DuBourg. With the Twenty-three

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.rf -I . .5 L ' ,AMI-H-+-f-W f- X K ,,. ,jpg .iu:..,. -fa w T i - .ar Q - f f-'-- . personal appearance and was respected by all. With the election of Mr. Daniel B. Page as Mayor, in 1829, the city began to pay closer attention to manufacturing. Steamboat and river traffic began to increase rapidly. ln 1841 St. Louis was divided into five wards. At the next election, that of April, 1842, George Maguire was elected Mayor under the new system of voting by ballot. 1-leretofore the people had simply named their choice to the judges. The Chamber of Commerce of St. Louis was formed in 1836 by twenty-five of the leading merchants. Its chief object was to further the interests of the city in commercial D v matters. The Merchants Exchange was not lv'-g,QfnZ,',E'Kf,,,,Igfne established until 1849 and the next year it was joined by the Millers Exchange. In 1837 the Bank of the State of Missouri was incorporated, with a capital stock of 35,000,000 lt was at about this period that the absolute necessity of a railroad between St. Louis and the East and West was felt. As a result, Mayor John F. Darby called the first railroad convention in St. Louis. Several years elapsed before any practical results were obtained, but the building of the roads now known as the Iron Mountain and the Missouri Pacific were practically decided upon. The year of 1849 saw the building of the Pacific railroad. Some years later work was started on the Ohio and Mississippi and on the Terra Haute and Alton Roads. This was the foundation for the system of railroads that has made St. Louis the greatest railroad center in the United States. The linancial panic of 1837 did not appear to have any effect upon St. Louis as it did on other cities of the country. The recovery from the depression was so rapid that the year of 1839 was distinctly a boom year. Steamboat trade grew enormously, a mayor's court was established, and the population increased to about 12,000. Although 1844 was the year of the great Hood, it did not prevent the erection of 1,146 new buildings. Two years later, the Mercantile Library was organized and the foundation laid for the splendid institution that has done so much toward educational work in the city of St. Louis. The year of 1849 was also a period of disaster to the growing city of St. Louis, for in that year it was visited by both fire and pestilence. The Great Fire of St. Louis began at ten o'c1ock one night and burned fiercely Twenty-Hue