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

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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

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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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K -gwevwwvr fr'-r- vw,-S1 . ,..,. I WW Awww: MM A K M Mm K D N 5 f ', 1 L-A- ., .: f1 'f' -- . I . . .Y . A . 5 1 fEZII'.., ,- .-.,.4.. ,,,.,. XEBTHEHZ E221 ag, ,515 Ea 1 -Q E.N,,N,W My Y- Grund and Olive, 1850 until morning. When it was finally overcome, it had destroyed steamboats and buildings to a total value of from three to six million dollars. As though the city had not yet suffered enough, a terrible epidemic of cholera soon descended upon it. There were many deaths caused by this dreaded disease which baffled some of St. Louis's best physicians. The business of the city, already crippled by fire, was for some time completely paralyzed by the plague. Following hard upon the horrid effects of fire and disease, came the great overland movement of people from the East. The discovery of gold in California brought about one of the most wonderful migrations known in history. St. Louis became a center for equipping the caravans bound westward. As we have seen, St. Louis was distinctly a French village. After the cession to the United States, the emigration from the east changed the language and customs of the community. St. Louis became an American city speaking the English tongue. But the German immigration, following the revolutionary movements in Western Europe during 1848 and 1849 brought thousands of Germans to Missouri. As a result, many of the inhabitants of St. Louis assumed German customs. During the Civil War period, our city was a very hotbed of political struggle, with the Unionists and Confederate sympathizers in daily antagonism at close range, and its intimate history is peculiarly colorful and romantic in consequence. St. Lous lives in the larger annals of the time as the American city which held its state in the Union against the will of the majority of the people of the state. The first four regiments that went into the field from this state to fight for the preservation of the Union were composed entirely of Germans. From the ,I-LL'f'l7ll.l Asia'