History of St. Louis

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The history of St. Louis began with the settlement of the area by Native American mound builders who lived as part of the Mississippian culture from the 9th century to the 15th century, followed by other migrating tribal groups. Starting in the late 17th century, French explorers arrived. Spain took over in 1763 and a trading company led by Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau established the settlement of St. Louis in February 1764. It attracted French settlers leaving Illinois after their defeat in the Seven Years' War. The city grew in population due to its location as a trading post on the Mississippi River, as the western fur trade was lucrative. The city played a small role in the American Revolutionary War and became part of the U. S. through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. With its connection through the Ohio River to the east, the Mississippi to the south and north, and the Missouri to the west, St. Louis was ideally located to become the main base of interregional trade. In the 1840s, it became a destination for massive immigration by Irish and Germans. Some native born Americans reacted with fear to the newcomers, adopting nativist sentiments. Missouri was a slave state, but the city's proximity to free states caused it to become a center for the filing of freedom suits. Many slaves gained freedom through such suits in the antebellum years. But, by the 1850s and the Dred Scott case, interpretations had changed and the US Supreme Court ruled against him. It also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, contributing to the tensions causing the American Civil War. During the War, St. Louis had a small skirmish on its outskirts, but was held under Union control. After the war, the city expanded its railroad connections and industrial activity. It suffered a corresponding rise in pollution of the river and waterfront. During the early 1870s, the Eads Bridge was constructed over the Mississippi River, and the city established several large parks, including Forest Park. Due to local political and economic disputes, the city separated from St. Louis County in 1876 and became an independent city. Its limited geographic area has inhibited its success in the 20th and 21st centuries because of the small tax base. During the late 19th century, St. Louis became home to two Major League Baseball teams. Ragtime and blues music flourished in the city, with African Americans making major contributions also in jazz. The city hosted the 1904 World's Fair and the 1904 Summer Olympics, attracting millions of visitors. Part of the infrastructure for the fair was the basis for major city institutions in Forest Park. In the early part of the century, many African Americans migrated from the South to the city for industrial jobs, as part of the Great Migration. St. Louis did not escape the Great Depression and its high unemployment. During World War II the city hosted war industries that employed thousands of workers. After the war, federal highway subsidies and postwar development encouraged outward migration as residents moved to gain newer housing; this suburbanization significantly reduced the city's middle class population. The city made efforts to create new attractions, such as the Gateway Arch, which construction became a focus of the civil rights movement to gain non segregated jobs in the skilled trades. The first litigation under the 1964 Civil Rights Act was against St. Louis unions. The city worked to replace substandard housing by new public housing projects such as Pruitt–Igoe. A combination of factors resulted in this being notoriously unsuccessful, and it was demolished in the late 20th century. Starting in the 1980s and continuing into the following century, construction and gentrification have increased in some areas of St. Louis, particularly downtown. City beautification and crime reduction have made progress, although St. Louis has continued to struggle with crime and perceptions of crime. The city saw modest population growth during the mid 2000s, but showed a decline in the 2010 U. S. Census.

The earliest settlements in the middle Mississippi Valley were built in the 10th century by the people of the Mississippian culture, who constructed more than two dozen platform mounds within the area of the future European American city. These were related to the center of the culture at the very large complex of Cahokia Mounds, on the east side of the Mississippi River. The Mississippian culture ended for unknown reasons in the 14th century and these sites were empty for some time. Siouan speaking groups such as the Missouria and the Osage migrated from the eastern Ohio Valley to the Missouri Valley. They lived in villages along the Missouri and Osage rivers. Explorer Louis Joliet and Jesuit priest Jacques Marquette traveled south on the Mississippi River in June 1673, passed the future site of St. Louis and reached the mouth of the Arkansas River before turning back. Nine years later, French explorer La Salle led an expedition south from the Illinois River to the mouth of the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico, claiming the entire valley for France. From 1756 to 1760, fighting in the French and Indian War (the North American front of the Seven Years' War) halted settlement building. The economy remained weak through 1762 due to the ongoing war, which France lost the following year.

The arrival in New Orleans of Jean Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie as the new governor of Louisiana in June 1763 led to changes in colonial policies. Laclede arrived at the site by mid 1764 and provided detailed plans for the village, including a street grid and market area. French settlers began to arrive from settlements on the east bank of the Mississippi in 1764, given the transfer of eastern land to Great Britain after the Treaty of Paris. The local French lieutenant governor moved to St. Louis in 1765 and began awarding land grants. As part of the peace negotiations to end the Seven Years' War, Spain gained control of Louisiana according to the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau in 1762. Due to travel times and the Louisiana Rebellion of 1768, the Spanish took official control in St. Louis only in May 1770. After the transfer, the Spanish confirmed French land grants, and Spanish soldiers provided local security. The occupation of most settlers was farming, and by the 1790s nearly were under cultivation around St. Louis. The first church was constructed in mid 1770 and St. Louis acquired a resident priest in 1776, making Catholic religious observance a more customary component of life. The French settlers brought both black and Indian slaves to St. Louis; although the majority were used as domestic servants, others worked as agricultural laborers. In 1769, the Spanish prohibited Indian slavery in Louisiana, but the practice was entrenched among the French Creoles in St. Louis. In 1772, a census determined the population of the village to be 637, including 444 whites (285 males and 159 females) and 193 African slaves, with no Indian slaves reported due to their technical illegality. During the 1770s and 1780s, St. Louis grew slowly and the Spanish commanders were replaced often.

Upon the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, Spanish governor, Bernardo de Galvez, in New Orleans assisted the American rebels with weapons, food, blankets, tents and ammunition. The Spanish lieutenant governors at St. Louis also aided the Americans, particularly the forces of George Rogers Clark during the Illinois campaign. However, the city was warned of the plans, and residents began to fortify the town. On May 26, 1780, a British commander leading a force consisting mostly of Indian allies launched an assault on the town of St. Louis, but were forced to retreat due to the fortifications constructed by the locals and defections of some of the Indians. In spite of the failure of their expedition, the Indians managed to torch much of St. Louis' agricultural lands and capture several heads of livestock, alongside several prisoners of war. A subsequent counterattack launched from the settlers against British forts in the Midwest ended the possibility of another attack being launched on the town. After the conclusion of the Revolutionary War at the Treaty of Paris, French Creole families evading American rule moved to the Spanish controlled land on the west bank, including wealthy merchants Charles Gratiot, Sr. and Gabriel Cerre. Both the Gratiot and Cerre families intermarried with the Chouteau family to create a Creole dominated society in the 1780s and 1790s. The families also had marital ties to Spanish government officials, including the lieutenant governors Piernas and Cruzat.

During the 1790s, towns near St. Louis expanded as small farmers sold their lands to the Cerres, Gratiots, Soulards, or Chouteaus. These farmers moved to towns such as Carondelet, St. Charles, and Florissant. By 1800, only 43% of the district's population lived within the village (1,039 of 2,447). The Spanish government secretly returned the unprofitable Louisiana territory to France in October 1800 in the Treaty of San Ildefonso. The Spanish officially transferred control in October 1802; however, Spanish administrators remained in charge of St. Louis throughout the time of French ownership. On March 8 or 9, 1804, the flag of Spain was lowered at the government buildings in St. Louis and, according to local tradition, the flag of France was raised. On March 10, 1804, the French flag was replaced by that of the United States. Wealthy St. Louisans petitioned Congress to review the system, and in July 1805, Congress reorganized the Louisiana District as the Louisiana Territory, with its territorial capital at St. Louis and its own territorial governor. From the division of the Louisiana Territory in 1812 to Missouri statehood in 1821, St. Louis was the capital of the Missouri Territory. The population of the city expanded slowly after the Louisiana Purchase, but expansion increased desire to incorporate St. Louis as a town, allowing it to create local ordinances without the approval of the territorial legislature. On November 27, 1809, the first Board of Trustees were elected. To enforce town ordinances, the Board created the St. Louis Police Department, and a town jail was established in the fortifications built for the Battle of St. Louis. After the end of the War of 1812, the population of St. Louis and the Missouri Territory began expanding quickly. During this expansion land was donated for the Old St. Louis County Courthouse. The state constitutional convention and first General Assembly met in St. Louis in 1820. Shortly thereafter, St. Louis incorporated as a city, on December 9, 1822. The first mayor of the city was William Carr Lane, and a Board of Aldermen replaced the earlier Board of Trustees. Early city government focused on improvements to the riverfront and health conditions. After the transfer of Louisiana to the United States, the Spanish had ended subsidies to the Catholic Church in St. Louis. As a result, Catholics in St. Louis had no resident priest until the arrival of Louis William Valentine Dubourg in early January 1818. Upon his arrival, he replaced the original log chapel with a brick church, recruited priests, and established a seminary. By 1826, a separate St. Louis diocese was created. Joseph Rosati became the first bishop in 1827. Protestants had received services from itinerant ministers in the late 1790s, but the Spanish required them to move to American territory until after the Louisiana Purchase. Methodist ministers reached the town during the early years after the purchase, but only formed a congregation in 1821. Followers of Mormonism arrived in 1831, and in 1854, they organized the first LDS church in St. Louis. Due to its role as a major trading post, the city was the departure point for the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804. American and other immigrant families began arriving in St. Louis and opening new businesses, including printing and banking, starting in the 1810s. Among the printers was Joseph Charless, who published the first newspaper west of the Mississippi, the Missouri Gazette, on July 12, 1808. In 1816 and 1817, groups of merchants formed the first banks in the town, but mismanagement and the Panic of 1819 led to their closure. The effect of the Panic of 1819 and subsequent depression slowed commercial activity in St. Louis until the mid 1820s. Rapids north of the city made St. Louis the northernmost navigable port for many large riverboats, and the Pike and other ships soon transformed St. Louis into a bustling inland port. More goods became available in St. Louis during the economic recovery, largely as a result of the new steamboat power. Wholesalers, new banks, and other retail stores opened starting in the late 1820s and early 1830s. The fur trade continued as a major industry into the 1830s. Smith would later be known for his explorations of the West and for being the first American to travel overland to California. New fur trade companies such as the Rocky Mountain Fur Company pioneered trails west. Although beaver fur lost its popularity in the 1840s, St. Louis continued as a hub of buffalo hide and other furs. Construction of the County Courthouse in the late 1820s also encouraged growth, with an addition of western lots to Ninth Street and a new City Hall adjacent to the river in 1833. The military post far north of the city at Fort Bellefontaine moved nearer to the city to Jefferson Barracks in 1827, and the St. Louis Arsenal was built in south St. Louis the same year. The 1830s included dramatic population growth: by 1830, it had increased to 5,832 from roughly 4,500 in 1820. By 1835, it reached 8,316, doubled by 1840 to 16,439, doubled again by 1845 to 35,390, and again by 1850 to 77,860.

In large part due to the rapid population growth, cholera became a significant problem. In 1849, a major cholera epidemic killed nearly 5,000 people, leading to a new sewer system and the draining of a mill pond. Cemeteries were removed to the outskirts to Bellefontaine Cemetery and Calvary Cemetery to reduce groundwater contamination. In the same year, a large fire broke out on a steamboat on the levee, spread to 23 other boats, and destroyed a large portion of the center city. The St. Louis landing was significantly improved during the 1850s. Using the engineering planning of Robert E. Lee, levees were constructed on the Illinois side to direct water toward Missouri to eliminate sand bars that threatened the landing. Another infrastructure improvement was the city's water system, which was begun in the early 1830s and was continually improved and expanded in the 1840s and 1850s. Most early St. Louisans remained illiterate through the 1810s, although many wealthy merchants purchased books for private libraries. Early schools in St. Louis were all fee based and mostly conducted lessons in French. The first substantial educational effort came about under the authority of the Catholic Church, which in 1818 opened Saint Louis Academy, later renamed Saint Louis University. In 1832, the college applied for a state charter, and in December 1832, it became the first chartered university west of the Mississippi River. Its medical school opened in 1842, with faculty that included Daniel Brainard (founder of Rush Medical College), Moses Linton (founder of the first medical journal west of the Mississippi River in 1843), and Charles Alexander Pope (later president of the American Medical Association). However, the university primarily catered to seminary students rather than the general public, and only in the 1840s did the Catholic Church offer large scale instruction at parochial schools. In 1853, William Greenleaf Eliot founded a second university in the city – Washington University in St. Louis. During the 1850s Eliot founded Smith Academy for boys and Mary Institute for girls, which later merged and became Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School. By 1854, the system had 27 schools and served nearly 4,000 students. In 1855, the district opened a high school to considerable fanfare. By 1860, nearly 12,000 students had enrolled in the district. Entertainment options increased during the pre–Civil War period; in early 1819, the first theatre production in St. Louis opened, including a musical accompaniment. In the late 1830s, a 35 member orchestra briefly played in St. Louis, and in 1860, another orchestra opened that played more than 60 concerts through 1870. Roughly 3,200 free blacks and slaves lived in St. Louis in 1850, working as domestic servants, artisans, crew on the riverboats and stevedores. Others were manumitted, which occurred relatively more frequently in St. Louis than in the surrounding rural areas. The first freedom suit in St. Louis was filed by Marguerite Scypion in 1805. More than 300 suits were filed in St. Louis before the Civil War. Among the most famous was that of Dred Scott and his wife Harriet, in a case heard at the Old Courthouse. The suit was based on their having traveled and lived with their master in free states. Although the state ruled in his favor, an appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court resulted in an 1857 ruling against them. The Court ruled that slaves could not be counted as citizens, overturning the basis of the Missouri Compromise and inflaming national debate about slavery. During the economic expansion of the 1830s, Irish and German immigration to St. Louis increased substantially. In particular, the writings of Gottfried Duden encouraged German immigration. Many Irish were motivated by the Great Famine of 1845–1846 and the failed Irish uprising of 1848. Other Irish settlers came because of its reputation as a Catholic city. Nativist sentiment increased in St. Louis during the late 1840s, leading to mob attacks and riots in 1844, 1849, and 1852. The 1844 riots derived from popular outrage and resentment toward human dissection, which was then taking place at the Saint Louis University Medical College. The discovery of human remains prompted rumors of grave robbing, and a mob of more than 3,000 residents attacked the medical college, destroying most of its interior facilities. The worst nativist riot in St. Louis took place in 1854. The local militia was used to end the fighting. 10 people were killed, 33 wounded, and 93 buildings were damaged. Regulations on elections prevented fighting in future elections in 1856 and 1858.

Before the war, the core of St. Louis leadership had shifted from the Creole and Irish families to a new group, dominated by anti slavery Germans. Among this new class of leaders was Frank P. Blair, Jr., who led an effort to create a local militia loyal to the Union after Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson hinted about secession. This local militia allied itself with the Union army forces at Jefferson Barracks under the leadership of Nathaniel Lyon, which on May 10, 1861, cleared a Confederate encampment outside the city in what became known as the Camp Jackson Affair. While the Confederates were being marched back into town, a group of citizens attacked the Union and militia forces, costing 28 civilian lives. Throughout the entirety of the Civil War, and despite having seen no battles, St. Louis was under pressure as it was considered a city on the borderline. Though many people were confident in abolition, many were concerned about the economic effect of losing their free work force. In addition, St. Louis was still a developing city, and so a war could lead to utter destruction and ruin. However, with all the necessity of ammunition, St. Louis survived and transformed into a leader among cities. After the Camp Jackson Affair, there were no more military threats to Union control until 1864, although guerrilla activity continued in rural areas for the duration of the war. The war significantly damaged St. Louis commerce, especially after the Confederacy blockaded the Mississippi shutting off St. Louis's connection to eastern markets. War also slowed growth during the 1860s, with an increase of only 43,000 residents from 1860 to 1866.

During the decades after the Civil War, St. Louis grew to become the nation's fourth largest city, after New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. It also experienced rapid infrastructure and transportation development and the growth of heavy industry. The period culminated with the 1904 World's Fair and 1904 Summer Olympics, which were held concurrently in St. Louis.

During the Civil War, the infrastructure of St. Louis suffered from neglect; another cholera epidemic struck in 1866, and typhoid fever raged. In response, St. Louis improved its water system and established a Board of Health to regulate polluting industries. St. Louis's park system was expanded during the 1860s and 1870s, with the creation of Tower Grove Park and Forest Park.

Railroad yards were built in Mill Creek Valley, establishing St. Louis as a transportation hub. Depots, roundhouses, bridges over railroad tracks, and many warehouses were built to support the growing railroad industry. Railroad connections with the southwest and Texas were improved during the 1870s, with the formation of the Cotton Belt Railroad. In addition to connecting St. Louis with the West, the railroads began to demand connections with the east across the Mississippi. The bridge formally opened on July 4, 1874. To accommodate increased rail traffic, a new railroad terminal was constructed in 1875, but it was not large enough to consolidate all train service in one location. A replacement station, called Union Station, opened on September 1, 1894. Although Chicago had a greater volume of traffic at its own Union Station, more railroads met at St. Louis than any other city in the United States. Union Station's rail platform expanded in 1930 and operated as the passenger rail terminal for St. Louis into the 1970s.

By 1870 the public and parochial education systems expanded, to 24,347 and 4,362 students respectively. St. Louis educators established the first public kindergarten in the United States, under the instruction of Susan Blow in 1874. Proposals for a free library system originated prior to the Civil War, and after the conflict the St. Louis Public School Library was established. During the 1870s and 1880s, a variety of local fee based libraries consolidated with the school library system, and in 1894, the school system divested the library system as an independent entity, which became the St. Louis Public Library. Racially segregated schools had operated secretly and illegally in St. Louis since the 1820s, but in 1864, an integrated group of St. Louisans formed the Board of Education for Colored Schools, which established schools without public finances for more than 1,500 black pupils in 1865. After 1865, the St. Louis Board of Education appropriated funding for the black schools, but facilities and conditions were quite poor. In 1875, after considerable effort and protest from the black community, high school classes began to be offered at Sumner High School, the first high school for black students west of the Mississippi. However, inequality remained rampant in St. Louis schools. Radical historians in the 1960s, steeped in the anti bureaucratic ethos of the New Left, deplored the emergence of bureaucratic school systems. They argue its purpose was to suppress the upward aspirations of the working class. However, other historians have emphasized the necessity of building non politicized standardized systems. The reforms in St. Louis, according to historian Selwyn Troen, were. "born of necessity as educators first confronted the problems of managing a rapidly expanding and increasingly complex institutions." Troen found that the bureaucratic solution remove schools from the bitterness and spite of ward politics. Troen argues:
In the space of only a generation, public education had left behind a highly regimented and politicized system dedicated to training children in the basic skills of literacy and the special discipline required of urban citizens, and had replaced it with a largely apolitical, more highly organized and efficient structure specifically designed to teach students the many specialized skills demanded in a modern, industrial society. In terms of programs this entailed the introduction of vocational instruction, a doubling of the period of schooling, and a broader concern for the welfare of urban youth.

When Missouri became a state in 1821, St. Louis County was created from the boundaries of the former St. Louis subdistrict of the Missouri Territory; St. Louis city existed within the county but was not coterminous with it. Starting in the 1850s, rural county voters began to exert political influence over questions of taxation in the St. Louis County court. At a Missouri state constitutional convention in 1875, delegates from the region agreed on a separation plan. A Board of Freeholders from St. Louis county and city reorganized boundaries and proposed a final plan of separation in mid 1876. The new city charter also tripled the size of the city to include the new rural parks (such as Forest Park) and the useful riverfront from the Missouri–Mississippi confluence to the mouth of the River Des Peres. After a fraudulent election initially showed a rejection of the plan, a recount in December 1876 showed voters had approved the separation.

During World War II, St. Louis was the location of a large ammunition factory and the Curtiss Wright aircraft factory. Area factories also produced uniforms and footwear, K rations, and chemicals and medicines. The uranium used in the Manhattan Project was refined in St. Louis by Mallinckrodt Chemical Company starting in 1942, and several atomic bomb scientists had ties to St. Louis, including Arthur Compton. At the start of the war, many German, Italian, and Japanese St. Louisans were interrogated or arrested, while the FBI investigated charges of sedition in the area. Residents engaged in civil defense drills and supported the war effort with scrap drives and war bond purchases. St. Louis produced several notable soldiers in the war, including Edward O'Hare, who grew up in St. Louis and won the Medal of Honor for combat in the Pacific. St. Louis also was home to Wendell O. Pruitt, an African American pilot who shot down three enemy aircraft and destroyed multiple ground targets in June 1944. At the outbreak of war, African American workers gained greater acceptance in industry than previously, but discrimination remained a problem for many black workers. During the war, city officials passed the first municipal integration ordinance, allowing African Americans to eat at city owned (but not private) lunch counters. In May 1944, when a black sailor in uniform was refused service at a privately owned lunch counter, the action prompted peaceful sit in protests at several downtown diners. More than 5,400 St. Louisans became casualties of the war, listed as either missing or killed in action. The end of the war led to the closure of many St. Louis factories, with major layoffs beginning in May and continuing through August 1945. By late 1945, returning soldiers encountered a chronic housing and job shortage in the city. The GI Bill allowed many St. Louis veterans to purchase homes and pursue higher education, which encouraged sub urbanization that after the war reduced the city's population.

Internal population migration westward was a feature of St. Louis since its earliest days, but it accelerated rapidly in the late 19th century. Starting in the 1890s, the St. Louis streetcar system and commuter railroad stations enabled commuters to travel from suburban towns bordering the city into the downtown. However, new highway construction and increased automobile ownership enabled further suburbanization and population began a long decline. Another factor in the city's population loss was white flight, which began in earnest during the late 1950s and continued during the 1960s and 1970s. The black population of St. Louis saw a natural increase of 19.5 percent during the 1960s, with no gain or loss through migration; during that decade, the overall percentage of black city residents rose from 29 to 41 percent. Work began in the early 1930s on acquisition and demolition of the forty block area where the memorial would stand; the only remnant of Laclede's street grid that was preserved was north of the Eads Bridge (in what is now known as Laclede's Landing). The only building in the area to remain was the Old Cathedral. Demolition continued until the outbreak of World War II, when the area began to be used as a parking lot. The project stalled until a design competition for the memorial was launched. In 1948, Finnish architect Eero Saarinen's design for an inverted and weighted catenary curve won the competition; however, groundbreaking did not occur until 1954. The Arch topped out in October 1965. A museum and visitors' center was completed underneath the structure, opening in 1976. In addition to attracting millions of visitors, the Arch ultimately spurred more than $500 million in downtown construction during the 1970s and 1980s. Concurrent with plans during the 1930s to build Gateway Arch National Park, then known as the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, were plans to create subsidized housing in the city. Despite efforts at civic improvement starting in the 1920s and two significant housing projects built in 1939, after World War II more than 33,000 houses had shared or outdoor toilets, while thousands of St. Louisans lived in crowded, unsafe conditions. Starting in 1953, St. Louis cleared the Chestnut Valley area in Midtown, selling the land to developers who constructed middle class apartment buildings. Nearby, the city cleared more than of a residential neighborhood known as Mill Creek Valley, displacing thousands. A residential mixed income development known as LaClede Town was created in the area in the early 1960s, although this was eventually demolished for an expansion of Saint Louis University. The majority of people displaced from Mill Creek Valley were poor and African American, and they typically moved to historically stable, middle class black neighborhoods such as The Ville. From the beginning problems plagued the projects; it became quickly apparent that there was too little recreational space, too few healthcare facilities or shopping centers, and employment opportunities were scarce. Crime was rampant, particularly at Pruitt–Igoe, and that complex was demolished in 1975. The other St. Louis housing projects remained relatively well occupied through the 1980s, in spite of lingering problems with crime. Along with the housing projects, a 1955 urban renewal bond issue totaled more than $110 million. The bonds provided funds to purchase land to build three expressways into downtown St. Louis, which later became Interstate 64, Interstate 70, and Interstate 44. In 1967, the highway only Poplar Street Bridge opened to move traffic from all three expressways over the Mississippi River. The openings of the Arch in 1965 and the bridge in 1967 were accompanied by the opening of a new stadium for the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals moved into Busch Memorial Stadium early in the 1966 season. Construction of the stadium required the demolition of Chinatown, St. Louis, ending the decades old presence of a Chinese immigrant community.

Due to the city's population decline, beginning in the 1920s and accelerating through the 1950s, local government leaders made several attempts to consolidate services. A pre–Great Depression annexation attempt by the city failed due to opposition from county voters, and only after World War II would more efforts be made toward consolidation. The first (and one of the few) successful attempts at consolidation resulted in the creation of the Metropolitan Sewer District, a city–county water and sewer company formed in 1954. The next year, however, a city–county mass transit agency was rejected by voters, followed by a failed charter revision in 1955 that would have unified the city and the county. Regional planning advocates succeeded in the 1965 creation of the East–West Gateway Coordinating Council, a group given the power to approve or deny applications for federal aid from cities.

By the late 1970s, urban decay had spread, as described by Kenneth T. Jackson, historian of suburban development:

[St. Louis is] a premier example of urban abandonment. Once the fourth largest city in America, the "Gateway to the West" is now twenty seventh, a ghost of its former self. In 1940 it contained 816,000 inhabitants: in 1980 the census counted only 453,000. Many of its old neighborhoods have become dispiriting collections of burned out buildings, eviscerated homes, and vacant lots The air is polluted, the sidewalks are filthy, the juvenile crime is horrendous, and the remaining industries are languishing. Grimy warehouses and aging loft factories are landscaped by weed grown lots adjoining half used rail yards. Like an elderly couple no longer sure of their purpose in life after their children have moved away, these neighborhoods face an undirected future.|Kenneth T. Jackson

As of the election of Vincent Schoemehl as the city's youngest mayor ever in 1981, St. Louis's problems were more significant than many other Rust Belt cities. Several major development projects were incomplete and the city's economic base crumbling. However, Schoemehl developed two projects early in his three terms in office that assisted St. Louis: Operation Brightside provided city beautification through plantings and graffiti cleanup. Schoemehl also instituted a safety program to address crime, known as Operation SafeStreet, which blocked access to certain through streets and provided low cost security measures to homeowners. Crime declined starting in 1984, and despite a small resurgence in 1989, continued to decline through the 1990s.

Although de jure segregation in St. Louis public schools ended in 1954 after Brown v. Board of Education, St. Louis area educators continued to employ tactics to ensure de facto segregation during the 1960s. In the 1970s, a lawsuit challenging this segregation led to a 1983 settlement agreement in which St. Louis County school districts agreed to accept black students from the city on a voluntary basis. State funds were used to transport students to provide an integrated education. The agreement also called for white students from the county to voluntarily attend city magnet schools, in an effort to desegregate the city's remaining schools. During the late 1990s, the St. Louis voluntary transfer program was the largest such program in the United States, with more than 14,000 enrolled students. In addition, districts have been permitted to reduce available seats in the program. Since 1999, districts have reduced availability by five percent annually. A five year extension of the voluntary transfer program was approved in 2007, and another five year extension was approved in 2012, allowing new enrollments to take place through the 2018–2019 school year in participating districts. Another criticism has been that the program weakens city schools by removing talented students to county schools. Despite these issues, the program will continue until all transfer students reach graduation; with the last group of transfer students allowed to enroll in 2018–2019, the program will end after the 2030–2031 school year.

From 1981 to 1993, new construction projects were initiated in downtown St. Louis at levels unseen since the early 1960s. Among these was the tallest building in the city, One Metropolitan Square, which was designed by Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum and built in 1989. New retail projects began to take shape: Amtrak abandoned Union Station as a passenger rail terminal in 1978, but in 1985, it reopened as a festival marketplace under the direction of Baltimore developer James Rouse. By the late 1990s, however, the mall had fallen out of favor due to the expansion of the St. Louis Galleria in Brentwood, Missouri. The mall's flagship Dillard's store closed in 2001. The mall closed in 2006, and beginning in 2010, developers began to convert the mall into a parking structure and an adjoining building into apartments, hotel, and retail. The Peabody Opera House (named for corporate contributor Peabody Energy) reopened on October 1, 2011, with performances by Jay Leno and Aretha Franklin. In January 1995, Georgia Frontiere, the owner of the National Football League team known as the Los Angeles Rams (now St. Louis Rams), announced she would move that team to St. Louis. The team replaced the St. Louis Cardinals (now Arizona Cardinals), an NFL franchise that had moved to St. Louis in 1960 but departed for Arizona in 1988. Starting in the early 1980s, more rehabilitation and construction projects began, some of which remain incomplete. In 1981, the Fox Theatre, a movie theater in Midtown that closed in 1978, was completely restored and reopened as a performing arts venue. Among the areas to undergo gentrification was the Washington Avenue Historic District, which extends along Washington Avenue from the Edward Jones Dome west almost two dozen blocks. During the early 1990s, garment manufacturers moved out of the large office buildings on the street, and by the end of that decade residential developers began to convert the buildings into lofts. Prices per square foot increased dramatically in the area, and by 2001, nearly 280 apartments were built. Among the Washington Avenue projects to remain in development is the Mercantile Exchange Building, which is being converted to offices, apartments, retail, and a movie theater. The gentrification also has had the effect of increasing the downtown population, with both the central business district and Washington Avenue district more than doubling their population from 2000 to 2010. Other downtown projects include the renovation of the Old Post Office, which started in 1998 and was completed in 2006. The Old Post Office and seven adjacent buildings had been vacant since the early 1990s; as of 2010 this complex included a variety of tenants, including a branch of the St. Louis Public Library, a branch of Webster University, the St. Louis Business Journal, and a variety of government offices. As early as 1999, the St. Louis Cardinals began pushing for the construction of a new Busch Stadium as part of a broader trend in Major League Baseball toward stadium building. In early 2002, plans for a new park were settled among state and local leaders and Cardinals owners. According to an agreement in which the state and city would issue bonds for construction, the Cardinals agreed to build a multipurpose development known as St. Louis Ballpark Village on part of the site of Busch Memorial Stadium. St. Louis is known for its architecture. In recent years there has been a growing movement for historic preservation. An area organization, the National Building Arts Center, advocates for this.

Starting in the early 1990s, St. Louis became home to a substantial Bosnian immigrant community, which became the second largest in the United States in 1999. The city also began to see an increase in immigrants from Mexico, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Many immigrants reported moving to St. Louis, particularly its south side Bevo Mill neighborhood, due to the low cost of living compared to other American cities. Despite this increase, the foreign born population of the St. Louis region was roughly one third of the national average in 2010. During the mid 2000s, the population of St. Louis began growing following a half century of decline. Census estimates from 2003 through 2008 were successfully challenged and population figures were revised upward; however, no challenges to 2009 data were permitted. In spite of gains during the 2000s, the 2010 U. S. Census showed a decline of slightly more than 10 percent for St. Louis. In addition, St. Louis was named as the city with the highest crime rate in the United States by CQ Press in 2010, using data reported to the FBI in 2009. Critics of these analyses note that division between St. Louis City and St. Louis County make crime reports for the area appear inflated, and that reporting crime differs greatly depending on the localities involved. The FBI cautioned against using this data as a form of ranking, as it presents too simplistic a view of crime. From 2006 to 2007, the rate of city youth to be killed by guns was the second highest in the United States, according to data released by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The rate of firearm deaths for the metropolitan statistical area was one fifth of the city rate.

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