County of marker: St. Charles County
Location of marker: foot of Tompkins St. & Riverside Drive, Frontier Park, St. Charles
Marker erected by: State Historical Society of Missouri and the State Highway Commission
Marker erected: 1953
Marker Text:
SAINT CHARLES
First permanent settlement on the Missouri Rover, known as Les Petites Cotes (Fr. Little Hills) until after dedication of Church of St. Charles Borromeo, 1791. Though 1780 is given date of founding French-Canadian Louis Blanchettte fist settled here in 1769.
This area was first settled by the French and later largely by Americans and Germans. Prominent early settlers were Daniel Boone and his family. Some 25 miles southwest is home of Boone's son Nathan. The Boon's Lick and Salt River trails began in St. Charles.
During the War of 1812 military activity in Missouri centered at Portage des Sioux, a 1799 French settlement, 14 miles northwest. In Fort Zumwalt State Park, 20 miles west, stand the remains of one of many family forts of the area erected against Indian attacks.
Here were established the first school of the Sacred Heart in the U.S., 1818, by Mother Duchesne; Baptist and Presbyterian churches, 1818, first Masonic Lodge north of Missouri River, 1819; a town academy, chartered, 1820; a newspaper, "The Missourian," 1820; and the Methodist St. Charles College, 1837.
St. Charles was made the temporary State capital, 1821-1826, by act of First General Assembly, Marquette and Jo meeting in St. Louis, 1820. Here the Legislature, by affirming in a "Solemn Public Act" that the rights of any U.S. citizen would not be abridged, met the final Congressional requirement for statehood. Debate over the slave issue that greeted Missouri's petition for statehood resolved itself in the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Slavery was prohibited north of 36° 30' except in Missouri. On Aug. 10, 1821, Missouri became the 24th state.
Near here is the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi. Marquette and Joliet noted this point, 1673, and here the Lewis and Clark Expedition began its ascent of the Missouri River, 1804. Three bridges cross the Missouri and two the Mississippi in St. Charles County.
Seat of justice for one of Missouri's 5 counties, earlier one of 5 Spanish Districts, St. Charles serves a farming and industrial area. Here are the old Capitol; Sacred Heart Convent; St Charles Borromeo Cemetery; and Lindenwood College, chartered, 1853, founded by George and Mary Sibley, one of the oldest schools for women in Mississippi Valley.