St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri

The second-largest city in Missouri, USA, is St. Louis. It is located close to where the Mississippi and Missouri rivers meet. The bi-state metropolitan region, which includes Illinois, has an anticipated population of approximately 2.8 million in 2020, making it the second largest in Illinois and the second largest in Missouri. In contrast, the city proper had a population of 301,578.

The region was a regional hub for Native American Mississippian culture prior to the arrival of the Europeans. French fur traders Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent, Pierre Laclède, and Auguste Chouteau established St. Louis on February 14, 1764, and named it after King Louis IX of France. After losing the Seven Years' War, France lost the region to Spain in 1764. It was retroceded to France in 1800, who then sold it to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase three years later. At that time, the city served as the Corps of Discovery's embarkation site for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

St. Louis developed into a significant Mississippi River port in the 19th century, and from 1870 through the 1920 census, it ranked as the fourth-largest city in the nation. In 1877, it broke away from St. Louis County, establishing a separate city with constrained political spheres. The Summer Olympics and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition were held there in 1904.

Global metropolis St. Louis has a broad economy with strengths in the service, manufacturing, trade, transportation, and tourist sectors, with a metropolitan GDP of more than $160 billion in 2017. Eight Fortune 500 firms call it home. Ameren Corporation, Peabody Energy, Nestlé Purina PetCare, Anheuser-Busch, Wells Fargo Advisors, Stifel Financial, Square, Inc., MilliporeSigma, FleishmanHillard, Anthem BlueCross and Blue Shield, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Centene Corporation, and Express Scripts are among the notable businesses with headquarters.

Saint Louis University and Washington University in St. Louis are two significant research universities. A collection of healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations, including Barnes-Jewish Hospital, are housed at the Washington University Medical Center in the Central West End area.

St. Louis is home to four professional sports teams: the Major League Baseball's St. Louis Cardinals, the National Hockey League's St. Louis Blues, Major League Soccer's St. Louis City SC, which is set to debut in 2023, and the XFL's St. Louis BattleHawks. The 630-foot (192 m) Gateway Arch in Downtown St. Louis, the Saint Louis Zoo, the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and Bellefontaine Cemetery and Arboretum are just a few of the city's famous attractions.

City Founding

Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent and Pierre Laclède (Liguest) engaged in trade before the city of St. Louis was founded in the fall of 1763. Laclède's trip up the Mississippi River was funded by St. Maxent, which was looking for a place to base its fur trading activities. He looked for a location that was less prone to flooding despite the fact that Ste. Genevieve was already well-known as a commerce hub. Not far south of the Mississippi River's junction with the Missouri and Illinois rivers, he discovered a high plateau overlooking the flood plain of the Mississippi River. There were surrounding forested regions to supply timber and grasslands that could readily be converted for agricultural purposes, in addition to the advantageous natural drainage system. Laclède predicted that this location "could eventually become one of the finest cities in America." In February 1764, he sent his 14-year-old stepson, Auguste Chouteau, to the location with the assistance of 30 settlers.

Two months after his arrival, Laclède created a plan for St. Louis based on the New Orleans Street layout. With only three lengthy roads running along to the west bank of the Mississippi, the standard block size was 240 by 300 feet. He created a 300-foot public corridor along the riverfront, but eventually this space was made available for private construction.

The city of St. Louis was not acknowledged by any governments for the first few years of its existence. St. Louis had no municipal government, despite the fact that it was widely believed that the Spanish government was in charge of the settlement. Due to the void, Laclède assumed civil administration, and all disputes were settled in public places like gatherings of the community. Laclède also provided incoming settlers with lots in the city and the adjacent area. Many of the original settlers later referred to these early years as "the golden age of St. Louis."

Representatives of the English, French, and Spanish governments started coming to the city in 1765. The local Indians showed their displeasure at being ruled by British troops. The change in authority and the prospect for the British to invade their territory incensed Pontiac, one of the great Ottawa chieftains. Many of the people in St. Louis objected to him fighting against them.

Although all of the colonial areas were still controlled by Spanish authorities, St. Louis was passed to the French First Republic in 1800. The French later ceded St. Louis to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. St. Louis was chosen as the new territory's capital and entry point. The Lewis and Clark Expedition was officially launched by President Thomas Jefferson not long after the ceremonial handover of power. In May 1804, the expedition set out from St. Louis to investigate the wide area, traveling along the Missouri River. Although the company had to travel overland in the Upper West, there were dreams of discovering a water path to the Pacific Ocean. In the summer of 1805, they traveled down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. On September 23, 1806 they arrived in St. Louis after their return. Following the expedition, Lewis and Clark both settled in St. Louis. Later, a great number of additional travelers (such as Ashley's Hundred) would follow a similar path to the West.

Climate

The St. Louis metropolitan region may even exhibit a hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfa), which illustrates the impact of the urban heat island on the metropolis. The urban area of St. Louis has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa). The city has sweltering, humid summers and brisk to freezing winters. It is exposed to both hot, humid tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico and chilly Arctic air. At the close-by Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, the yearly average temperature is 57.4 °F (14.1 °C). On average, 3 and 1 days each year, respectively, temperatures of 100 and 0 °F (38 and 18 °C), are experienced. Rainfall has ranged from 20.59 inches (523 mm) in 1953 to 61.24 inches (1,555 mm) in 2015, with an average of 41.70 inches (1,100 mm). In St. Louis, the hottest temperature ever recorded was 115 °F (46 °C) on July 14, 1954, while the lowest temperature ever recorded was 22 °F (30 °C) on January 5, 1884.

Thunderstorms typically occur 48 days a year in St. Louis. These storms can frequently be violent, with strong gusts, big hail, and tornadoes, especially in the spring. St. Louis, which is one of the most often tornado-affected cities in the United States and is located within Tornado Alley, has a long history of being hit by destructive tornadoes. Severe flooding, like the Great Flood of 1993, can happen in the spring and summer. Spring flooding can be exacerbated by the (often rapid) melting of heavy snow cover upstream on the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers.

Sports

There aren't any elite professional sports organizations based in Greensboro. The Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League relocated to Raleigh from Hartford, Connecticut in 1997; however, the team's first two seasons were spent at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex while its permanent home, Raleigh's Entertainment & Sports Arena, was being built. The Minnesota Twins were close to moving to the city in the late 1990s and even received league clearance, but the deal fell through when local voters declined to pay for the planned ballpark.

A minor league baseball team in Greensboro is called the Greensboro Grasshoppers (formerly known as the Greensboro Bats and Greensboro Hornets). They are a farm team for the Pittsburgh Pirates and play in the High-A East in Class High-A. Playing at First National Bank Field are the Grasshoppers.

The premier men's amateur soccer league in the country, USL League Two, features Greensboro's North Carolina Fusion U23. Four conferences with 63 teams each are divided into ten regional divisions. It is ranked behind the United Soccer League as the fourth division of competition. The squad has played its home games at Macpherson Stadium in the neighboring town of Browns Summit since 2003. PDL seasons take place throughout the summer, and the player pool is primarily composed of top NCAA college soccer players looking to continue playing at a high level during their summer break while still being eligible for their respective colleges.

The Greensboro Hornets won the right to host an associate NBA Development League franchise on October 27, 2015, outbidding other contender locations like Columbia, Asheville, Fayetteville, and Charleston. At the Greensboro Coliseum Fieldhouse, the Greensboro Swarm started performing in the fall of 2016.

Despite having no schools in the league, Greensboro is home to the Atlantic Coast Conference's headquarters. The ACC men's basketball tournament has been held in the Greensboro Coliseum Complex 23 times since 1967 and the ACC women's basketball tournament 12 times since 2000. Additionally, Greensboro has once hosted the Final Four as well as three NCAA Men's Basketball Regionals.

Every year, Greensboro hosts an event for the PGA Tour. The final PGA Tour competition before the FedEx Cup Playoffs is the Wyndham Championship, which takes place at Sedgefield Country Club. One of the oldest events on the PGA Tour, the competition was first played in 1938 under the name Greater Greensboro Open.

Due to the numerous sporting events, it organizes, Greensboro is known as "Tournament Town." The city has also hosted the ACC baseball tournament, the 2011 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, and a variety of national competitions at the new Greensboro Aquatic Center, in addition to the ACC basketball tournament and NCAA basketball games. The NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four title game was held in Greensboro in 1974. The Final Four was held in North Carolina for the first time ever.

Incorporated in 2010, Greensboro Roller Derby has been a part of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association since 2013. In addition to interleague all-star and b-level teams, which each include skaters from the three intraleague teams, the league consists of three intraleague teams named after notable streets in the city. The league is a not-for-profit organization that is controlled by the skaters, all of whom have ties to the neighborhood. From March to November, roller derby matches take place in the Greensboro Coliseum.

Economy

Textiles, tobacco, and furniture have traditionally been the main industries in Greensboro and the Piedmont Triad region. With FedEx having regional operations in the city, Greensboro's strategic location within the state has made it a popular area for families, businesses, and a growing logistics hub. A $1.3 billion battery plant would be run by Toyota Motor North America, a division of the Japanese carmaker Toyota, in Greensboro, it was revealed in December 2021.

The International Textile Group, the Honda Aircraft Company, HAECO Americas, ITG Brands, Kayser-Roth, VF, Mack Trucks, Volvo Trucks of North America, Qorvo, the Atlantic Coast Conference, Cook Out, Ham's, Biscuitville, Fusion3 3D Printers, Tripps, Wrangler, Kontoor Brands, and Columbia Forest Products are notable businesses with headquarters in Greensboro. "Center of operations" for the insurance provider Lincoln Financial Group is Greensboro.

The high-tech, aviation, transportation, and logistics industries, as well as nanotechnology, have been the focus of city leaders' efforts to draw new enterprises. Gateway University Research Park was inaugurated by North Carolina A&T State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Popular Now!