St. Louis County, Missouri: History
=== Colonial settlement and early government ===
During the 18th century, several European colonial settlements were established in the area that would become St. Louis County. French colonists moved from east of the Mississippi River after France ceded territory to Great Britain after losing the Seven Years' War. It also ceded much of its territory west of the River to Spain.
St. Louis was founded by Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau on February 14, 1764; they became major fur traders in the city. Founded in about 1767 was Carondelet, to the south. It was annexed by the city in 1871. Florissant, then known as St. Ferdinand, was established in 1785 about twelve miles northwest of St. Louis on a tributary of the Missouri River. During the 1790s, the very small settlements known as Creve Coeur and Point Labadie were built north and west of St. Louis.
Upon the sale and transfer of French Louisiana to the United States on October 1, 1804, President Thomas Jefferson suggested the territory retain the districts drawn by Spanish officials during their decades-long rule of the territory after an arrangement with the French. During this time, the first governing body of St. Louis County was established (following the earlier Spanish governors).
This government, called the Court of Quarter Sessions, was composed of Charles Gratiot, Auguste Chouteau, Jacques Clamorgan, and David DeLaunay, all ethnic French or French Canadians; the court held judicial, executive, and legislative power. On October 1, 1812, the District of St. Louis was renamed St. Louis County (exactly eight years after its establishment) during a federal reorganization of the Louisiana Territory's status.
After the transfer of Louisiana to the United States, the authority to grant incorporation to municipalities was delegated to the Territory and later was a state power. The first to gain municipal status in St. Louis County was St. Louis, which incorporated on November 9, 1809, under the territorial legislature. It gained city status on December 9, 1822. Only a handful of other municipal incorporations took place prior to the separation of the county and city: St. Ferdinand was granted incorporation in 1829 (and reincorporated as Florissant in 1843), while Bridgeton, a settlement along the Missouri River near Florissant, gained incorporation in 1843.
The towns of Pacific and Kirkwood grew substantially and incorporated in the 1850s, with their growth stimulated by construction of the Pacific Railroad (later the Missouri Pacific Railroad). Pacific, a community along the Meramec River first known as Franklin, straddles St. Louis and Franklin counties; it incorporated as Pacific in 1859. Kirkwood was settled in 1853 after Hiram Leffingwell and Richard Elliott platted and auctioned land along the railroad line; they named their settlement after James P. Kirkwood, who had planned the route of the railroad through the area. Leffingwell organized the town as a planned suburb (the first west of the Mississippi). Kirkwood was granted incorporation by the state in 1865.
Other areas of the county began to be settled during this period but did not incorporate as towns. Among these were Chesterfield, which was settled in the 1820s in west St. Louis County. Gravois and Affton were settled in south St. Louis County in the 1850s and 1860s.
The first St. Louis Public Schools were established in the major city in the 1830s. It was a decade and more before some of the settlements of St. …