NOTE: This is a highly selective chronology of events that piqued my interest while researching and writing The Great Heart of the Republic. Hence, it is a “work product” more than a footnoted, annotated, triple-checked publication. Corrections and additions welcomed.
For an extensive timeline focused on the national story of the Civil War, see the New York Times‘ Disunion feature.
1764 February 15 Pierre Laclède, Auguste Chouteau, and others arrive from New Orleans to found a city and trading fort
1778 June 20 Pierre Laclède dies in Poste des Arkansas on the Arkansas River
1803 April 30 Louisiana Purchase treaty signed
1804 March 9 Official transfer of St. Louis from Spain to France
1804 March 10 Official transfer of St. Louis from France to the United States
1806 September 23 Return of Lewis and Clark from their expedition to the Pacific
1811 New Madrid earthquake
1814 August 14 Madame Chouteau dies
1815 Thomas Hart Benton arrives in St. Louis from Tennessee
1817 August 2 Arrival of the Zebulon M Pike from Louisville, the first steamer north of the Ohio River, ending the era <br> of keelboats and voyageurs
1817 September 27 Thomas Hart Benton kills Charles Lucas in a second duel
1819 May Henry Shaw arrives in St. Louis
1820 Missouri constitutional convention meets in St. Louis
1821 Missouri state legislature petitions Congress to remove all Indians from the state
1821 August 10 President James Monroe declares Missouri admission complete
1823 William Carr Lane defeats Auguste Chouteau in the city’s first mayoral contest
1824 April 29 Arrival of the Marquis de Lafayette, welcomed by William Carr Lane, Auguste Chouteau, Stephen Hempstead, and others; taken to the museum of William Clark
1825 Missouri Republican succeeds the Gazette
1826 July 3 Ordinance to renumbered and rename St. Louis streets in the style of Philadelphia
1829 Duden’s Narrative published in Rhineland, encouraging German immigration to Missouri
1829 August 20 Opening of Bank of the United States branch in St. Louis
1829 August 29 Death of Auguste Chouteau in the house he had built for Laclède
1831 January William Lloyd Garrison founds The Liberator in Boston
1831 Wilson Primm offers the first English-language history of St. Louis at the Lyceum
1832 United States negotiates last treaty to remove all Indians from Missouri
1832 Cholera epidemic strikes St. Louis
1832 September 12 Washington Irving visits St. Louis, entertained by William Clark with Native American dances
1832 December 28 St. Louis University receives its charter as the first university west of the Mississippi
1834 January First German Evangelical church opens and first German-language Catholic sermon given in St. Louis
1834 November 27 William Greenleaf Eliot arrives in St. Louis
1835 January 26 First Congregational Society of St. Louis organized by William Greenleaf Eliot; later renamed Church of the Messiah
1835 April 20 County delegates meet to discuss railroad construction at unfinished St. Louis courthouse
1835 October 31 First edition of of the St. Louis German newspaper Anzeiger des Westens
1836 February 6 John Francis Darby calls a town hall meeting for urging a national road constructed to St. Louis
1836 April 28 Lynching of Francis McIntosh in St. Louis
1836 May 24 New St. Louis Theater, 3rd and Olive, designed by Meriwether Lewis Clark, opens.
1836 July 21 Elijah Lovejoy announces he will move his press to Alton, Illinois, after St. Louis pressroom is invaded by rioters following an editorial that denounced the judgment that the McIntosh lynching could not be pinned on individuals
1836 October 4 St. Louis Medical College established by Medical Society of Missouri, attached to St. Louis University with William Greenleaf Eliot on the board
1837 October 27 William Greenleaf Eliot’s church at Fourth and Pine dedicated
1837 Robert E. Lee posted to St. Louis, to work to deepening the Mississippi channel
1837 January Missouri chartered 18 railroads for the state, without providing funds
1837 June 9 Daniel Webster visits St. Louis, honored at a barbeque that 6,000 attend
1837 November 7 Elijah Lovejoy is killed in Alton while defending his fourth press from proslavery mob
1838 April 2 First public school opens in St. Louis
1838 September 3 Funeral of William Clark
1840 May 23 Meeting advocating for ten-hour day by bricklayers in St. Louis
1841 February 15 The state approved annexation to increase the size of St. Louis sevenfold
1841 April 1 Planter’s Hotel opens in St. Louis
1841 October The Chouteau Mansion, the first Euroamerican building in St. Louis, is torn down
1842 J. N. Nicollet writes his history of St. Louis
1842 April 10-14 Visit of Charles Dickens and his wife to St. Louis
1843 February 1 Attempt made to remove the city from the county of St. Louis
1843 February 23 Act passed to jail free black steamboat employees while in St. Louis
1843 May 3 John James Audubon visits St. Louis
1843 September 11 Death of Joseph Nicolas Nicollet
1843 September 30 Arrival of Ulysses Grant to Jefferson Barracks
1844 Bernard Pratte, first St. Louis-born mayor, elected
1844 February 29 Riot over cadavers at the St. Louis University Medical College
1844-1845 Carl Wimar and his family move to St. Louis from Germany
1845 February 20 Edward Bates lectures on St. Louis history
1845 December 30 Local businessmen discuss founding the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1846 January 12 Formal call is made to found the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1846 January 13 Open meeting to found the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1846 George Caleb Bingham completes The Jolly Flatboatmen
1846 Judge John M. Krum of St. Louis Circuit Court upholds the free-license law, denies claim that blacks are citizens
1846 April 5 Henry Clay arrives in St. Louis for a visit
1846 April 6 Dred and Harriet Scott file their first freedom suits in the St. Louis circuit court
1846 April 24 Start of the U.S. War with Mexico with skirmish in Texas
1846 May 13 U.S. War with Mexico begins
1846 August 6 Congressman David Wilmot proposes his Proviso
1847 John Sidney Mount completes The Power of Music
1847 Missouri nominally bans entry, education for free blacks and mulattos
1847 February 15 First celebration of city’s founding, attended by 90-plus-year-old Pierre Chouteau
1847 February 16 Missouri legislature incorporates the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1847 June 27 Steamboats return Missouri volunteers from the U.S. War with Mexico
1847 November 3 First night of gas street lights in St. Louis
1847 December 20 Telegraph from the East Coast first reaches East St. Louis, Illinois
1848 Frank Blair founds the Free Soil newspaper the Missouri Barnburner, in St. Louis
1848 Illinois and Michigan Canal completed
1848 February 2 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed
1848 March Direct telegraphic connection to the East Coast for St. Louis, via wires held by masts in the river, 175 feet high
1848 April Thomas Allen files a plat for land in South St. Louis
1848 August 22 Wedding of Ulysses Grant and Julia Dent in St. Louis; two of his groomsmen, Wilcox and Pratte, would surrender to him at Appamattox
1848 September 9 Missouri Republican carries an early warning about Chicago and its railroads taking away the lead trade at Galena
1849 All St. Louis city ordinances translated into German
1849 Severe cholera epidemic
1849 February 7 Thomas Hart Benton introduces a plan for government to fund and own a St. Louis-to-San Francisco railroad route
1849 March 6 Missouri Legislature passes the Claiborne Jackson Resolutions, declaring Congress has no power over slavery laws
1849 March Pacific Rail Road Company chartered
1849 April 2 St. Louis approves a bill for railroad funding
1849 May 17-18 St. Louis Great Fire
1849 July 3 Quarantine begins amidst worsening cholera epidemic
1849 August 3 National day of prayer declared by President Taylor for cholera victims
1849 October 15-16 National railroad conference at St. Louis, Stephen Douglas presiding, and Thomas Hart Benton delivers his “There is the East!” speech
1850 January 29 Henry Clay proposes a series of laws that later known as the Compromise of 1850
1850 February Missouri grants railroad loan guarantees
1850 June 3-11 Nashville Convention; delegates from nine slaveholding states (not including Missouri) consider a possible course of action if Congress had banned slavery in the new territories
1850 July Henry Clay gives up on Omnibus Bill compromise; Zachary Taylor dies in office
1850 September Separate elements of the Compromise/“Armistice” of 1850 pass
1850 November 14 Thomas Hart Bention delivers “The Progress of the Age” at the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1850 November 21 William Greenleaf Eliot lectures on St. Peter’s and the Coliseum at the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1851 Thomas Hart Benton loses his Senate seat
1851 March 18 St. Louis concert of Jenny Lind, as arranged by P.T. Barnum
1851 April 9 City of Carondelet incorporated
1851 June 20 Last day of the serial publication of Mysteries of the City in the Anzeiger des Westens; author Heinrich Boernstein charges that a coming civil war will be a Roman Catholic plot
1851 July 4 Groundbreaking parade and ceremony in St. Louis for a railroad to the West
1851 November Groundbreaking for the St. Joseph and Hannibal Railroad
1851 November 12 St. Louis creates Lafayette Park
1851 December 7 William Greenleaf Eliot’s Church of the Messiah at Ninth Street dedicated
1851-1852 Chouteau’s Pond drained
1852 Missouri Supreme Court rules against Dred and Harriet Scott
1852 Carl Wimar goes to Germany to study
1852 Thomas Hart Bingham completes The County Election
1852 Thomas Hart Benton rebuffs attempts by northern wing of Democratic party to make him a Free Soil nominee
1852 March 9 Arrival of Louis Kossuth in St. Louis
1852 June 10 Congress grants the combined Missouri railroads land to build west from St. Louis
1852 July 12-13Procession on the death of Henry Clay (he died June 29, 1852)
1852 August Bloody election-day rioting between Germans and nativists, Ned Buntline involved; Thomas Hart Benton wins seat in the House of Representatives Benton wins US House seat
1852 December 9 First train reaches from St. Louis to Cheltenham
1852 December 27 Ralph Waldo Emerson arrives in St. Louis
1853 Dred and Harrier Scott refile in federal court
1853 Completion of the railroad link from New York to Chicago
1853 February 2 Letter from Wayman Crow to William Greenleaf Eliot on a Seminary being established
1853 February 7 First high school west of Mississippi established
1853 February 18 Josiah Dent lectures on the Mississippi River’s centrality to the United States at the Mercantile Library
1853 February 22 Charter from Wayman Crow for the Eliot Seminary signed by Governor Sterling Price
1853 March Congress orders a survey of five possible transcontinental railroad routes
1853 June 19 First Pacific Rail Road run outside of city, from St. Louis to Franklin (now Pacific), Missouri
1853 September 23 Secretary of War Jefferson Davis rejects a permit for the Iron Mountain Railroad to cross the grounds of the St. Louis Arsenal
1853-1854 George Caleb Bingham completes The Verdict of the People
1854 January 19 Hostler Polk and others set up a bowling alley and bar in the middle of the ice of the Mississippi River
1854 February 22 William Greenleaf Eliot, at inaugural meeting, suggests renaming the Seminar after Washington instead
1854 February 25 St. Louis Mercantile Library opens new building
1854 April and May Profitable run for an anti-abolitionist version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in St. Louis
1854 May 4 Incorporation of the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society in Boston
1854 May 26 Kansas-Nebraska Act passes Congress
1854 July 6 Republican Party is born in Jackson, Michigan
1854 July 28 First organized band of Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company settlers arrives in Kansas Territory and soon founds the city of Lawrence
1854 August 6-10 Thomas Hart Benton loses his House re-election to Luther Kennett; largest antebellum St. Louis riots, with ten dead
1854 October 17 Dedication of completed St. Louis Mercantile Library building
1854-1856 Political realignment creates deadlock that leaves Missouri with no second US senator
1855 Auguste Chouteau narrative of early St. Louis history rediscovered
1855 Edward William Johnston arrives in St. Louis to work on the St. Louis Intelligencer
1855 February Page and Bacon, a private bank in St. Louis, fails
1855 March 30 Thousands of Missourians, including David Rice Atchison and Claiborne Fox Jackson, cross the border to vote in the Kansas territorial elections
1855 November 1 Gasconade Bridge disaster, with 31 killed
1855 December 4 Missouri commits another $3 million in bonds to rebuild railroad bridges
1856 Carl Wimar returns from studying in Germany
1856 Mississippi Valley Agricultural and Mechanical Fair established
1856 Illinois Central Railroad opens as the longest in the world, paid for by federal money
1856 March 10 First issue of the St. Louis Leader, founded by Edward William Johnston and Charles L Hunt
1856 April 21 First train crosses the Rock Island Bridge to Davenport, Iowa
1856 May 4 The “Effie Afton” crashed into the Rock Island bridge
1856 May 18 Charles Sumner’s “The Crime Against Kansas” delivered in Congress
1856 May 21 Missourians enter Lawrence, Kansas, and fire on the Free State Hotel
1856 May 22 Caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate by Preston Brooks
1856 May 24 John Brown and seven men kill five proslavery men along Pottawatomie Creek
1856 August 30 Battle at Osawatomie, Miami County, Kansas; Frederick Brown, the son of John Brown, among the dead
1856 Summer Thomas Hart Benton supports Democratic candidate James Buchanan instead of Republican candidate John C. Frémont, his son-in-law
1856 August Thomas Hart Benton loses the race for governorship, his last
1856 August 26 Duel of Benjamin Gratz Brown and Thomas Reynolds on an island near St. Louis
1856 September 8 Washington University building opens at 17th and Washington
1856 November 4 Democrat James Buchanan defeats John C. Frémont
1856 December 16 St. Louis Chamber of Commerce resolved to support the case against the Rock Island bridge
1856 December 16-18 Reargument of the Dred Scott case in the U.S. Supreme Court
1857 February 12 Benjamin Gratz Brown calls in state legislature for gradual end to slavery, in order to support white labor
1857 February 12 Governor Trusten Polk signs the amended charter to create Washington University
1857 March 6 Dred Scott decision from the U.S. Supreme Court handed down
1857 April 1 Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man is published
1857 April 22 Formal inauguration of Washington University
1857 May 26 Emancipation of Dred Scott, Harriet, Eliza, and Lizzy Scott by Taylor Blow
1857 June 15 St. Louis is connected to the East Coast via rail to Illinoistown
1857 June 27 Abraham Lincoln speaks on the Dred Scott decision
1857 August 4 Arrival in St. Louis of William Torrey Harris
1857 August 24 Panic of 1857 precipitated by failure of a New York financial institutions.
1858 Cyprian Claymorgan publishes The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis
1858 The rediscovered Auguste Chouteau narrative fragment was published
1858 April 10 Thomas Hart Benton dies
1858 May 4 Freedom bonds signed for Dred and Harriet Scott by Blow
1858 May 18 Leavenworth Constitution ratified by Kansas voters; rejected by U.S. Congress.
1858 June 16 Abraham Lincoln delivers the “House Divided” speech
1858 August 21 First Lincoln-Douglas debate in Ottawa
1858 August 27 Second Lincoln-Douglas debate in Freeport
1858 September 15 Third Lincoln-Douglas debate in Jonesboro
1858 September 16 Start of rail-to-coach mail service from St. Louis to California; takes three weeks
1858 September 17 Death of Dred Scott
1858 September 18 Fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate in Charleston
1858 October 7 Fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate in Galesburg
1858 October 13 Sixth Lincoln-Douglas debate in Quincy
1858 October 15 Seventh and last Lincoln-Douglas debate in Alton
1858 December Edward William Johnston publishes St. Louis Mercantile Library catalogue with innovative classification system
1859 Completion of Hannibal and St. Joseph RR to St. Joseph
1859 Pacific Rail Road Company defaults on its interest payments
1859 Opening of Henry Shaw’s Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis
1859 March George Caleb Bingham’s copies of portraits of George and Martha Washington given to the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1859 April 19 Edward William Johnston elected librarian of the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1859 October 16 John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry
1859 December 2 John Brown hanged for treason, Charlestown, Virginia
1860 January 2 Henry Raymond of the New York Times lectures at the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1860 February 12 Kansas admission bill introduced in U.S. House of Representatives
1860 April 3 Pony Express begins operation out of St. Joseph.
1860 October 19 Stephen Douglas visits St. Louis on a campaign stop
1860 November 6 Abraham Lincoln elected President; Lincoln win St. Louis vote by a margin of 700 over Douglas
1860 December Crittenden compromise fails in its vote in Congress
1860 December 20 South Carolina secedes
1861 January 4 Inauguration day for Governor Claiborne Jackson; calls a state convention to determine state’s status
1861 January 12 Meeting at St. Louis courthouse of conditional Unionists
1861 January 29 President James Buchanan signed Kansas admission bill.
1861 February 28 State convention meets in Jefferson City; agrees to move to St. Louis Mercantile Library Hall
1861 March 4 Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration day; secession convention reconvenes in the Mercantile Library Hall; Confederate flag hoisted over courthouse
1861 March 9 Missouri convention votes not to secede, 70-23
1861 April 1 St. Louis city elections turns out Republicans
1861 April 12 Firing on Fort Sumter; Civil War fighting begins
1861 May 10 Surrender of secessionist-leaning state militia at Camp Jackson to federal troops
1861 May 21 Price-Harney agreement
1861 June 11 Meeting of Lyon, Jackson, and Price fails; Gasconade Bridge exploded by retreating state officials
1861 July 25 John C. Frémont arrives in St. Louis to take command of new Western Department
1861 August 5 Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, still in flight from Union forces, declares Missouri a free republic and seeks admission to the Confederacy
1861 August 7 James B. Eads given Union contract for ironclad gunboats; the first, the St. Louis, is finished October 12
1861 August 9-10 Battle at Wilson’s Creek, death of General Nathaniel Lyon
1861 August Frémont’s proclamation of martial law, including confiscation order to free slaves
1861 September 5 Frémont formally establishes Western Sanitary Commission with Eliot’s circle of as organizers
1861 October Visit of Anna Ella Carroll to St. Louis, met with Edward William Johnston
1861 November 2 Frémont receives news that he is removed from command by President Lincoln
1861 November 28 Missouri is admitted to the Confederacy; both Union and Confederate governments claim its territory
1862 January Split of St. Louis Merchants’ Exchange into North and South factions
1862 January 26 General Halleck’s Special Order No. 80 calls all officers of the Mercantile Library Association and the Chamber of Commerce to take the oath of allegiance to the Union
1862 January 28 Edward William Johnston refuses oath, submits resignation
1862 February 10 Willie Lincoln dies of typhoid
1862 May 19 Edward Everett delivers “The Origin and Character of the War” lecture at the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1862 May 27 Sermon at St. Vincent’s church on… secession? (See Chapter 7.)
1862 June 30 St. Louis courthouse completed
1862 July Schofield and Gamble reinstate assessments system
1862 July 4 St. Louis Courthouse holds opening gala
1862 July 22 Lincoln presents the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet
1862 August 18 Special Order No. 253 ordered the Mercantile Library Hall to be opened for troop drilling
1862 August 17-19 Wife of Edward Johnston captured, held at Gratiot Street prison, released
1862 September 22 Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at Antietam
1862 November 28 Carl Wimar dies of tuberculosis at 33, having finished the murals in the St. Louis courthouse dome
1862 December McPheeters removed from his pulpit by Order #152
1862 December 15 Halleck formally reverses the duns, following recommendations of William Greenleaf Eliot
1863 January 1 Final Emancipation Proclamation
1863 January 20 War Department suspends all assessments in Missouri
1863 April General Order #100, Lieber’s code on martial law
1863 June First Missouri black regiment, the future 62nd US Regiment, organized at Schofield Barracks
1863 July 1 Gradual emancipation plan for Missouri approved
1863 August Drafting of General Order #11 by Ewing and Lane to re-concentrate and have scorched-earth campaign in three western Missouri counties; many in St. Louis oppose
1863 November 10 Gettysburg Address
1863 November 25 Lindell Hotel opening ball
1864 February 4 St. Louis and Illinois Bridge Company incorporated, Eads Bridge its later result
1864 May 9-June 8 Frémont nominated for President by Radicals; drops out after the fall of Atlanta
1864 May 18 Three-week Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair opens in specially built building at 12th and Olive
1864 September 19 Sterling Price invades Missouri, aiming to capture St. Louis
1864 September 25 Raid of Cheltenham post office brings the war closest to St. Louis since Wilson’s Creek
1864 October 11 Election day in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania
1864 November 4 Election Day in the rest of the United States
1865 January 6 Missouri constitutional convention convenes in Mercantile Library Hall
1865 January 11 Missouri slaves granted freedom
1865 January 31 13th Amendment passes
1865 February 2 St. Louis Public Library founded
1865 April 4 Abraham Lincoln goes to Richmond
1865 April 9 Lee surrenders at Appomattox
1865 April 14 Lincoln shot at Ford’s Theater; dies the next morning
1865 April 15 News of assassination reaches St. Louis
1865 April 26 John Wilkes Booth found and killed
1865 May 10 Jefferson Davis captured
1865 May 29 Lincoln cenotaph removed after 30 days from the St. Louis courthouse
1865 September Railroad west reaches Kansas City
1865 October First meeting of Missouri Equal Rights League, led by St. Louis leaders James Milton Turner and Moses Dickson
1865 November Frank Blair Jr. challenges the test oath
1865 December 6 13th Amendment ratified
1866 Cholera epidemic in St. Louis
1866 Logan Reavis arrives in St. Louis from Illinois
1866 St. Louis Philosophic Society founded by Henry Brokmeyer, William Torrey Harris, Denton Snider, Susan Blow, and others
1866 January 14 First meeting leading to what will become Lincoln University
1866 June 25 Lincoln Institute incorporated
1866 August 11 Formation of the Missouri Historical Society, on centennial of the first land grant in city’s history
1866 September 8 Arrival of Andrew Johnson in St. Louis on his “swing around the circle,” accompanied by William Seward, Generals Farragut, Grant, and Hancock
1866 September 17 Lincoln Institute opens its doors in Jefferson City
1866 September 25Southern Relief Fair at the Mercantile Library Hall
1867 Cummings case in U.S. Supreme Court rules against some uses of test oaths
1867 March 6 Ralph Waldo Emerson lectures on at the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1867 March 25 Mark Twain lectures at the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1867 March 30 Fire burns down the Lindell Hotel
1867 November 25 Susan B. Anthony speaks at the St. Louis Mercantile Library in Library Hall
1867 December 9 Edward William Johnston dies of throat cancer
1867 December 10 Edward William Johnston’s wife Margaret A. dies at age 46
1868- 1875 Eads bridge construction
1868 Opening of Tower Grove Park
1868 January 14 St. Louis newspaper claim to have the only functioning typewriter in the U.S.
1868 May 27 Unveiling of Harriet Hosmer’s statue of Thomas Hart Benton in Lafayette Park
1868 July 9 14th Amendment ratified
1868 November Missouri constitutional amendment for black voting rights defeated
1869 May 10 Promontory Point Golden Spike Ceremony for the transcontinental railroad
1869 October 20-22 Convention at the Mercantile Library Hall to urge moving the national capital to St. Louis
1870 February 3 15th Amendment ratified
1870 March 26 Lemma Barkeloo is the first woman admitted to the bar in Missouri
1870 July 5 “Social evil” law legalizing the license of prostitution in St. Louis
1870 July Logan Reavis publishes St. Louis, The Future Great City of the World to promote capital move
1870 November Benjamin Gratz Brown wins as Liberal Republican governor, with support of Democrat Frank Blair Jr.
1871 St. Louis annexes city of Carondelet
1871 January 13 St. Louis Mercantile Mercantile Library 25th anniversary celebration
1871 March 1 James Milton Turner named minister to Liberia
1871 May 8 Mercantile Library passes resolutions to create a German branch
1871 June 6 St. Louis Mercantile Library sets up committee to consider relocation
1871 October 8 Great Fire in Chicago
1872 Democrats win city offices
1872 First year of Susan Blow’s kindergarten
1872 June 29 Preliminary opening of Forest Park
1872 October 9 Stabbing of James Milton Turner by George Wedley
1872 November 20 American National Women Suffrage Association meets in St. Louis, Virginia Minor presiding
1873 February 25 Lecture by Henry Ward Beecher at the St. Louis Mercantile Library
1873 October 15 Lecture by Harriet Beecher Stowe at the Mercantile Library
1874 January 31 First Jesse James Gang raid
1874 Spring Social evil rule repealed by removing regulation authority
1874 July 4 Formal opening of the St. Louis Bridge (now called Eads Bridge)
1875 Whiskey Ring convictions
1875 January 16-20 Visit of King Kalakaua of Hawaii to St. Louis, on return from Washington, DC
1875 Newly elected mayor Arthur B. Barrett dies
1875 May 5 Missouri constitutional convention convenes in Jefferson City
1875 May 6 St. Louis Brown Stockings beat the Chicago White Stockings
1875 August 2 Missouri state convention approves the constitution and adjourns
1875 October 30 Election to approve new state constitution, including home rule option for St. Louis
1875 November Southern Railroad Convention in St. Louis
1875 December 20 St. Louis mayor and city/county joint session formally begin separation proceedings
1876 April 4 Freeholders elected to form Scheme of Separation
1876 April 14 Unveiling of Freedom’s Memorial statue in Washington
1876 June 17 Harriet Scott dies
1876 June 24 Forest Park formally opens
1876 June 25-26 George Armstrong Custer and many of his troops die at Little Bighorn
1876 June 26 St. Louis approves boundary extension
1876 June 28 Tilden nominated at Democratic convention in St. Louis
1876 July 4 Nation’s Centennial; scheme of separation formally announced
1876 August 22 Election on the scheme of separation; seems to fail.
1876 October 13 Motion for vote to be certified as winning for separation
1876 December Recertification with new vote total approved
1877 March Inauguration of Rutherford B. Hayes as President
1877 April 26 Missouri Supreme Court rules on Forest Park election and city charter, allegations of fraud, declares many of the “no” votes invalid
1877 July 22 Nation’s first national strike begins with freight seizure in St. Louis
1878 October 8 First visit of the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan to St. Louis, timed to coincide with Agricultural and Mechanical Fair
1879 October 13 Visit of Walt Whitman to his brother, Thomas Jefferson Whitman, St. Louis water commissioner
1887 January 23 Death of William Greenleaf Eliot
1892 Failed attempt to get the Columbian Exposition, which goes to Chicago
1896 Pierre Chouteau proposes plan for Louisiana Purchase centennial
1896 June 16 Republican National Convention opens in St. Louis, nominating William McKinley
1899 January St. Louis chosen over New Orleans for the Louisiana Purchase celebration
1899 November William Reedy publishes essay “What the matter with St. Louis?”
1903 April 30-May 2 Dedication of the World’s Fair grounds, with Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland among the speakers
1904 April 30 St. Louis World’s Fair opens
1906 October 4 Statue of St. Louis on Art Hill dedicated
1914 May 28-June 1 St. Louis Pageant and Masque
1917 July 2 Racial violence in severe riot in East St. Louis
