Saint Charles

Saint Charles was the first permanent settlement on the Missouri River, known as Les Petites Cotes until after the dedication of the Church of St. Charles Borromeo in 1791, and although 1780 is given as its founding date, French-Canadian Louis Blanchette first settled here in 1769. The area was first settled by the French and later largely by Americans and Germans, and prominent early settlers included Daniel Boone and his family. The Boon's Lick and Salt River trails began at St. Charles. During the War of 1812, military activity in Missouri centered at Portage des Sioux, a 1799 French settlement 14 miles northeast, and in Fort Zumwalt State Park 20 miles west stand the remains of one of many family forts erected in the area against Indian attacks. Here were established the first school of the Sacred Heart of the U.S. in 1818 by Mother Duchesne, Baptist and Presbyterian churches in 1818, the first Masonic lodge north of the Missouri River in 1819, a town academy chartered in 1820, a newspaper, The Missourian, in 1820, and the Methodist St. Charles College chartered in 1837. St. Charles was made the temporary state capital from 1821 to 1826 by act of the First General Assembly, meeting in St. Louis in 1820. Here the legislature, by affirming in a Solemn Public Act that the rights of any U.S. citizen would not be abridged, met the final congressional requirement for statehood. Debate over the slavery issue that greeted Missouri's petition for statehood resolved itself in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery north of 36 30' except in Missouri, and on Aug. 10, 1821, Missouri became the 24th state. Near here is the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi, noted by Marquette and Jolliet in 1673, and here the Lewis and Clark Expedition began its ascent of the Missouri in 1804. Seat of justice for one of Missouri's first five counties, and earlier one of five Spanish districts, St. Charles serves as a farming and industrial area and includes the Old State Capitol, Sacred Heart Convent, St. Charles Borromeo Cemetery, and Lindenwood College, chartered in 1853 and founded earlier by George and Mary Sibley as one of the oldest schools for women in the Mississippi Valley.

St. Charles, Missouri · United States