High on a limestone bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, with forested areas beyond the cliffs, French fur traders traveled up from New Orleans in 1762 and found an ideal site to establish a trading post. Following a prediction that the village they built "might become hereafter one of the finest cities of America," the settlement quickly grew because of its central location in the Upper Mississippi Valley, close to the confluences of the Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio Rivers.
By the time Captain Meriwether Lewis saw it during December 1803, St. Louis was a thriving community with almost 200 white-washed houses and a population of perhaps a thousand people from all walks of life and nationalities. Established by the French in the hopes of a trade monopoly with the Indians, governed by the Spanish, and purchased by President Jefferson for America, St. Louis has always been cosmopolitan in nature as it transitioned from a frontier river town to a metropolitan mercantile empire.
Come spend a week in St. Louis with River Historian Jon G. James, and explore all the local, regional, and national attractions associated with the most famous events and people in American history. You will walk through ethnic neighborhoods and on the original levee and riverfront and recount the compelling legends and gripping stories of countless boatmen, cowboys, Indians, politicians, priests, slaves, soldiers, and voyageurs who passed through or resided in this vibrant city, the Gateway to the West.
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