Ebook A Tour of St. Louis

Louisiana, or The Illinois. The seat of the Government, which extended over this region, was at New Orleans. In 17 62, d'abadie, then Governor General, granted to Pierre Laclede Ligueste and his associates, under the name of The Louisiana Fur Company, the privilege of trading with the Indians 011 the Missouri and west of the Mississippi River, with authority to establish such posts as they might think fit in furtherance of their enterprise. The next year Laclede set out to explore the country assigned to him, accompanied, among others, by two youths, afterwards well known citizens of this place, the brothers Auguste and Pierre Chouteau. Having Carefully examined every point on the river, not omitting Ste. Genevieve, which had then for ten years been the headquar ters of a considerable trade in peltry and lead, be satisfied himself that no other site presented the advantages sought for by him to so great an extent as the spot on which now stands St. Louis. It was, at the time when Laclede first set foot upon it, a beautiful expanse of undulating prairie, free from woods, save at one point on the' river bank, near the center of the present city, which was then embellished by a grove of noble forest trees. He therefore resolved to establish his chief trading post here and on the 15th of February, 1764, carried that resolve into execution by taking formal possession of it, and naming it St. Louis.