Some goals of the Museum's St. Louis History and Geography Lesson Plan:

I. Teach geography skills.

1. Map reading
2. Critical thinking

II. Introduce the Campbell family.
After reading the provided materials, students should be able to answer the following questions about the Campbell family:

1. Who was Robert Campbell
2. Where was he born?
3. What is a person called who comes from a different country?
4. Who was Virginia Campbell?
5. How many children did the Campbells have?
6. How many children lived past the age of 7?
7. What businesses did Robert Campbell have?
8. Who lived in the house after Robert Campbell died?

III. Teach local history.
After reading the provided materials, students should be able to answer the following questions:

1. Why is St. Louis located at the juncture of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers?
2. Where was St. Louis before 1850?
3. What was the Campbell House property before it was part of a neighborhood?
4. Why did people live closely packed together in the early St. Louis? (1764 to 1850)
5. Why did the wealthy residents move out of the city?
6. What invention allowed them to move further away from their businesses?
7. As the wealthy residents continued to move further west after the 1880's, why did the Campbells choose to stay in this house? (Open question)
8. How many houses do you see on Locust Street today?
9. Where did they go?
10. What do you see happening around the Campbell House today?
11. Who were the Campbells?

St. Louis is a unique place with its own style and history. For more than 10,000 years people have been making a home for themselves here. What is it about this place that has made it a good place to live for so long? (By the end of this lesson the children should be able answer this question.)

1. The United States and St. Louis



Look at a map of the United States and find St. Louis. One of the first things you will notice about St. Louis is all of the rivers surrounding it. St. Louis sits on the western shore of the Mississippi River, just below the mouth of the Missouri River. Just north of St. Louis, on the Mississippi River, is the mouth of the Illinois River and just south of St. Louis is the mouth of the Ohio River. Before railroads and cars were invented rivers were the fastest and easiest way to travel. St. Louis is the hub of a great waterways system that makes it relatively easy for a person to travel from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico by water.

The St. Louis we know today is not the first large city in this area. In about 800 A.D. small groups of Native Americans began to come together to create what would become the largest city in North America at Cahokia Mounds, across the river from St. Louis in Illinois. This city lasted until about 1200 A.D. when it was abandoned and the people returned to their small farming communities spread across the landscape.

2. Hutchins' map of the mid-Mississippi River Valley, 1778



In 1673 France claimed the entire Mississippi River valley as their colony and began to establish missions and trading posts, which quickly evolved into small farming communities along the east bank of the Mississippi River. Father St. Cosme established the earliest of these communities, Cahokia, Illinois, in 1699. In 1763, the entire west bank of the Mississippi and New Orleans were transferred to Spain and the east bank became part of the British colonies.

3. Colonial map of St. Louis, circa 1800



In 1763 a group of traders were given a monopoly to trade with all of the Native Americans west of the Mississippi by the French Governor in New Orleans. One of the traders, Pierre Laclede, led a group of boats loaded with trading goods up the Mississippi in the fall. When he reached Fort De Chartres, in Illinois, the commandant told Laclede that he was now in British territory and to maintain his trading monopoly, he would have to set up his post on the west bank of the Mississippi.

Laclede then went on a trip up the river to find the most suitable spot for his post. He chose the site of what is now St. Louis because it was the first high ground south of the mouth of the Missouri. This meant that he was close to the people he wanted to trade with and the site was above the floods on the river. In the early spring of 1764 he sent his 14-year-old protégé, Auguste Chouteau, and a group of boatmen to establish his trading post at what is now St. Louis. With the transfer of the east bank of the Mississippi River to the English, there were many settlers who joined Laclede across the river in St. Louis in what was then Spanish territory.

Within a very short time St. Louis became one of the largest villages in the mid-Mississippi valley. In 1803, Napoleon, the Emperor of France, sold the entire Mississippi River valley and much of what is now the western part of the country, for fifteen million dollars to the United States; this became known as the Louisiana Purchase. The Federal government very quickly began to encourage westward expansion and settlement. St. Louis became the logical place for emigrants heading west to stop and purchase supplies for their trip. By the 1830s, St. Louis had become the "Gateway to the west."

4. St. Louis map showing the common fields, circa 1820

5. St. Louis map circa 1845

6. Common Field map superimposed over 1840 St. Louis map



The city of St. Louis experienced very rapid growth after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Around the colonial village of St. Louis were large areas of agricultural land. When the Americans arrived after the Louisiana Purchase they began to buy the long narrow lots for their own farms and for development. If you look at the layout of streets in St. Louis, many of them follow the edges of the original 18th century fields. Robert Campbell arrived in St. Louis in 1824 as this expansion was just beginning.

7. Lucas Place neighborhood, 1875

8. St. Louis street with an early horse-drawn streetcar.



In 1850, James and his sister Ann Lucas laid out St. Louis' first private neighborhood, Lucas Place. It ran along both sides of what is now Locust Street from 13th to 18th streets on three original long lots that James' father J.B.C. Lucas purchased in 1810. When the neighborhood was laid out, it was west of the developed part of the city. Lucas Place was in essence the suburbs. Lucas Place, for the first time in St. Louis, allowed the wealthy to separate themselves from the rest of the city.

What allowed people to move further away from their businesses was the introduction of streetcar lines in the city. For the first time, people could move easily and quickly across larger spaces in the city. The first street cars were not electric or steam, they were pulled by mules. The major problem with Lucas Place was that the city quickly grew up around it. By 1880 the residents began to move further west to Vandeventer Place and the Central West End. Today, the only remaining Lucas Place building is the Campbell House Museum.

St. Louis continues to expand quickly. The St. Louis metropolitan area now encompasses 12 counties and extends out from the riverfront forty-five miles in each direction.

Bibliography

1. "Lion of the Valley". Primm, James Neal. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press. 1998.
2. "Seeking St. Louis". Sandweiss, Lee Ann, ed. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press. 2000.
3. "The St. Louis Irish." Faherty, William. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press. 2001.
4. "Colonial St. Louis". Peterson, Charles. Tucson, AZ: The Patrice Press. 1993
5. "From Mountain Man to Millionaire". Nester, William. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 1999.

Other References for Studying the St. Louis Landscape

1. "St. Louis Lost: Uncovering the City's Lost Architectural Treasures". Bartley, Mary. St. Louis: Virginia Publishing Company, 1994.
2. "Ain't But a Place: An Anthology of African American Writings about St. Louis". Early, Gerald, ed. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Press, 1998.
3. "Where We Live: A Guide to St. Louis Communities". Fox, Tim, ed. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1995.
4. "The Days and Nights of the Central West End: An Affectionate Look at the Last 20 Years in the City's Most Exciting Neighborhood". Goell, Suzanne, ed. St. Louis: Virginia Publishing, 1991.
5. "Common Fields: An Environmental History of St. Louis". Hurley, Andrew, ed. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Press, 1997.
6. "Frenchtown". Rodabough, John. St. Louis: Sunrise Publishing Company, 1980.
7. "St. Louis: The Evolution of an American Urban Landscape". Sandweiss, Eric. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.
8. "Seeking St. Louis: Voices from a River City, 1670-2000". Sandweiss, Lee Ann, ed. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 2000.
9. "Saint Louis: An Informal History of the City and its People, 1764-1865". Van Ravenswaay, Charles. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1991.
10. "Civil War St. Louis". Gerteis, Louis. University Press of Kansas, 2001.
11. "Discovering African-American St. Louis: A Guide to Historic Sites". Wright, John. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society Press, 1994.

1508 Locust Street | St. Louis, MO 63103 | 314-421-0325
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