Saint Charles

This is the story of Saint Charles Missouri …

The earliest and most important settlement north of the Missouri River is Saint Charles, originally known as Les Petite Côtes or the Little Hills.

  • SETTLEMENT  Founded in 1769 it was settled by Louis Blanchette who stated that he and his wife Tuhomehenga, had settled along a spring fed creek, and called it Les Petite Cotes “The Little Hills”. At that time the district of St. Charles embraced all the territory with the limits of the Spanish boundaries north of the Missouri River. This is the Colonial period of St. Charles County’s history, under French and Spanish rule.
  • VILLAGE   By 1804  and Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory, the Settlement of San Carlos had become a village of 100 families that resided on the northern bank of the Missouri River.  They incorporated themselves as the Village of San Carlos in this new America in 1809, giving themselves more opportunity to make decisions in stride with the rapidly growing territory. This is the Territorial Period of St. Charles County’s history.
  • TOWN  In 1821 the Town of  St. Charles was made the first official State Capitol of the new  State of Missouri. This would be a time period of rapid growth and change. No longer just a frontier town where fur traders and military outfitted themselves for the way west to the Boone’s Lick, this was where matters of State were decided. Land transactions boomed so fast the town could barely keep up with the growth, hiring surveyors like Prospect K. Robbins and Nathan Boone to lay out and mark the streets as fast as they could. This is the Statehood period of St. Charles County’s history.
  • CITY AND COUNTY By 1826, the City of St. Charles and the County of St. Charles were changing. The old French and Spanish families of the early days of settlement had given way to the new American families flooding westward. Residents such as Gottfried Duden had come to see why the American families were flooding its valleys. A book about his experience was published in Germany in 1829, an the tide of German emigrants flooded its hills and valleys, especially along the Missouri River.