In August of 1763, Pierre Laclède Liguest, partner in the New Orleans trading firm of Maxent, Laclède and Company drifted down the Mississippi from its intersection with the Missouri and Illinois Rivers, looking for a new trading post. He stopped at the first elevated site he saw on the west bank, where the river was overlooked by limestone ledges, and a sandy shore provided a landing place. George McCue writes, "Laclede thereupon executed the first St. Louis city plan, by notching some trees to mark building sites and streets." *
St. Louis was far from the first French outpost in the New World. The French had colonized Haiti and other Caribbean islands, as well as French Canada, before making New Orleans their primary settlement in the present day United States. Laclède's relocation to St. Louis was a successful bid to profit from the apparently unlimited resources of the American continent.
In February, August Chouteau, not quite 14 and Laclède's stepson, returned to the site with thirty men to begin construction of the new post. They laid out three north-south streets: La Grande Rue; Rue d'Eglise and Rue des Granges (now First, Second and Third Streets) and narrower east-west streets: Rue de la Tour, Rue de la Place and Rue Missouri (Walnut, Market and Chestnut). A one-story stone building with a high cellar was erected to serve as both Laclède's business and residence. The next block west was dedicated for a church and graveyard. (The Old Cathedral, built in 1834 still occupies this site.) A central public plaza for assembly and a public market was drawn up between Laclède's house and the river.
Laclède took up residence in the new village later in the year, naming it St. Louis in honor of Louis IX, patron saint of France. He subsequently enticed about forty French families from the earlier Illinois settlements of Cahokia and Kaskaskia to join him in the new village. Some came carrying doors and windows of their former houses to use in new ones.
These settlers were the more easily attracted since the Illinois side of the river had been ceded by France to Great Britain in 1763, and they were uneasy under English jurisdiction. But St. Louis had really been in Spanish control since the previous year, when France surrendered the west bank of the Mississippi with the Treaty of Fontainebleau. As Spain was considered a French ally, perhaps their rule seemed preferable to the English. In any case, it appears that the original village laid out by Laclède and Chouteau was planned in accordance with Spanish directives for new settlements, and that street widths and block dimensions corresponded to Spanish requirements. But it would be six years before Spanish officials reached St. Louis.
Culturally, the town remained French. Lots were granted freely to individuals, starting in 1766, on the condition that a building would be constructed and the lot fenced within a year and a day. Lots were granted adjacent to already occupied blocks for security, and owners enclosed their property with high walls of vertical logs (called palisades), creating a continuous defensive stockade.
By 1804, when the Louisiana Purchase made St. Louis part of United States territory, the village had grown from three east-west streets to nineteen, and its population from 40 in 1764 to over 1,000.
Most of the first residents of St. Louis made their living from the fur trade; however, provisions for the division of land for farming were laid out as early as the village itself. In a tradition which probably comes from Canadian settlements, a large tract of partly wooded land southwest of the village became the St. Louis Commons, and was shared jointly by all inhabitants. The land was used for cattle grazing, and timber was logged for building materials and fuel. Originally, the Commons occupied the area now bounded by 4th, Clark and 10th Streets, and Park Avenue, but increased in size along with St. Louis, eventually reaching the River des Peres seven miles away.
Five other tracts of land were set aside for agriculture. The first, the St. Louis Prairie, was laid out by Laclède at the same time as the village. It was located approximately in the area between Market and O'Fallon and 4th and Jefferson. The largest tract was the Grande Prairie, created about 1765. It was 2 miles northwest of the village and so far away that inhabitants could not make the trip there and back the same day, and constructed small huts for shelter. (Laclède had a country house there). Following European tradition, the land in these fields was divided into long narrow strips and assigned to individuals based on the amount of property they held in the village.
The design of the buildings constructed by the French in St. Louis had evolved over two hundred years of colonization in the New World. They were a combination of French and Caribbean influences, and resulted in two distinct house forms. Except for the church, a few small barns and military structures, virtually all buildings in early St. Louis were residences.
French houses were of three distinct construction types. By far the most common was palisaded or vertical log construction, also called poteaux en terre (posts-in-ground). Vertical posts were placed directly into a deep trench and earth packed in to hold them upright. The spaces between the posts were filled with a nogging of stones, earth and plaster. Walls were then given a finished coat of plaster on interior and exterior, and whitewashed. Tall, narrow openings were filled with multi-light casement windows, and had exterior shutters. The houses had distinctive, hipped roofs, called pavilion roofs, where the front and back slope was very steep, and the two sides nearly vertical. The earliest roofs were thatched, and the pitch was required to shed rain properly. Although wood shingles soon became available, the high roof continued as a tradition in later buildings. On at least one side, often several, porches or galleries extended the length of the facade. The gallery roof sloped considerably less than that of the house itself, resulting in the characteristic French colonial roof shape. The galleries served not only to cool the house, but to protect the plaster walls from the weather. At least two-thirds of the first St. Louis buildings were of palisaded construction.
The Bienvenue House stood on the northwest corner of 3rd and Plum streets. Built in 1786, it originally had a gallery on all sides, and a pavilion roof. The house was derelict by the time it was photographed by Thomas M. Easterly in the 1850's, but it clearly shows its palisaded construction.
Another similar construction type used by the French colonists was really a frame construction, called poteaux sur sole (posts-on-sill). A heavy wood sill was placed on a high masonry foundation, and the vertical posts fastened to it. The rest of the building, including roof, walls and gallery, was identical to palisaded construction. Although this method was used in only a small percentage of St. Louis buildings, it was far more durable, and such houses were the most likely to survive to the era where they could be photographed.
A excellent example of the French vertical log frame construction was the Dodier-Sarpy house, once located at the corner of Second and Clark streets. The one-story house had a raised rubble limestone basement, with a gallery that extended on at least two sides of the house. The house had typical French casement windows and shutters. This photograph was probably taken in the mid 19th century.
Stone construction was the second most prevalent building material. Limestone was abundant in the St. Louis area, and was used throughout the colonial period for houses, foundations and chimneys. It had the advantage of being impervious to fire or rot; but its construction was more difficult, and at this period only the wealthier inhabitants used it. (Laclède's house, the first in the village, was stone.) Limestone was plentiful from the bluffs along the river; the stone was quarried and hauled to the site, where it was laid with mortar composed of lime or, if the walls were protected by galleries, of mud. Stone houses also used the pavilion roof shape and galleries, and several houses were raised on high basements, which provided an additional story. By 1804, about a quarter of the houses in St. Louis were of stone construction.
Gabriel Cerre house, constructed about 1770, shown in a later drawing, was of stone, with a high raised basement, and gallery across the front facade. Entry to the main rooms of the house was from an exterior stair located at the far right. The roof seems to be a modified pavilion roof, (really a two-sloped gable), and is covered with wood shingles.
At the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804, there were only two American families living in St. Louis; the majority of the other residents were French Canadians or Creole families from New Orleans. Up to the War of 1812, immigration from the American states was slow. In 1811, the population had increased to 1400; there were twelve stores, two private schools and a printing office. Market House, which served as City administration offices in addition to the city market had been constructed in 1809 on the town's public block. But after the war, more settled conditions dramatically increased the immigration of Americans, coming from almost all the eastern states: primarily Georgia and Maryland, but also New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New England. By 1818, the number of American residents had exceeded French, and St. Louis' population reached 3,500. There were forty stores, three banks, a post office, brewery, and several mills. In the year 1818 alone, one hundred new houses were constructed.
Instead of adopting the existing French building forms, Americans brought their own with them. The houses they built in the new town were those familiar to them from the east.
The Thomas Riddick House was built in 1818 at 617 South 4th Street. It is a two-story brick house, 4 bays wide, in the model of the three-quarters house popular on the east coast. It is completely American in form and detailing: tall and rectangular, the front gallery has been eliminated; a medium-sloped gable replaces the French pavilion roof, and the house has American double hung windows instead of casements.
The original village of St. Louis is almost completely lost. There are no known French colonial structures still standing in the City of St. Louis: the last one was probably demolished by 1900, although similar houses, like the Biquette-Ribault House can be seen in various stages of conservation in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. The creation of the Jefferson National Expansion Monument eliminated most of the original street pattern of the French village as well. Only in Laclede's Landing between the Eads and King bridges, and in parts of Chouteau's Landing, south of downtown, is the early street grid perceivable. The French village left its mark also in the line of one or two western streets: sections of Jefferson near Washington follow the original western edge of the St. Louis Prairie; North Grand Boulevard corresponds to what was the Grande Prairie's east side. And since each narrow individual farm strip was laid perpendicular to the boundary, streets in the area west of North Grand follow the old lot lines of the Prairie.