1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/St. Louis
ST. LOUIS (see 24.24). The pop. of St. Louis in 1920 was 772,897, an increase of 85,868 since 1910, or 12.5%. In the preceding decade the increase was 111,791 or 19.4%. The area remained as fixed in 1876, but the increasing pop. and industries have spread beyond these limits. The city, the counties of St. Louis and St. Charles in Missouri and the counties of St. Clair and Madison in Illinois are grouped as the St. Louis district and treated as a whole in the U.S. industrial census. In 1920 the district contained 1,145,443 inhabitants.
Municipal Government and Activities.—A new charter adopted in 1914 reduced the elective officers to mayor, comptroller, president and board of aldermen, collector, treasurer, recorder of deeds, sheriff and coroner, with terms of four years. The legislative branch is unicameral. Each of the 28 wards has a resident alderman elected by the entire city vote, one-half of the board retiring biennially. Mayor, comptroller and president of the board of aldermen form a board of estimate and apportionment. An appointive board of public service consists of a president and four directors of divisions, public welfare, public safety, public utilities, and streets and sewers. Municipal departments and bureaus are grouped in the four divisions. The president of the board has charge of public work and improvements. In 1919 the city's outstanding bonds amounted to $19,884,000, to which in 1920 was added $5,500,000 for removal of railway grade crossings, for a municipal farm to afford better treatment of the tubercular and insane, for new engine houses and reconstruction of streets and for municipal lighting equipment. The tax rate for 1920-1 was $2.55 per $100 assessed valuation, divided as follows: state purposes, $0.18; public schools, $0.78; municipal government, $1.51; public library, $0.04; art museum, $0.02; zoölogical park, $0.02. The assessed valuation of realty and personalty for 1920-1 was $777,500,000. City planning was undertaken in 1912 with a commission of nine citizens and five ex-officio members. The work done includes a concrete dock, mechanically equipped to convey freight between river and railways. A zoning law determines definitely the residential, industrial and commercial districts; 29 street widenings, openings and cut-offs were under construction in 1921. Neighbourhood parks, playgrounds and squares were increased to 80, embracing 2,908 acres. A pageant and masque given by 2,000 participants before audiences of 100,000 led to the construction in 1917 of a municipal theatre in Forest Park, with accommodation for 9,270. At a cost of $7,200,000, the city completed in 1917 a municipal bridge of massive steel construction, double track and double deck, across the Mississippi. About five years earlier the McKinley bridge was erected by the Illinois Traction Co., primarily to admit interurban electric trains. Kingshighway viaduct, 855 ft. long, completed in 1912 at a cost of $500,000, crosses the railway tracks and unites western sections of the city. A municipal court building, a city jail and a children's detention house, all of stone, were erected, the first in 1912, the others in succeeding years, at a cost of $1,855,000.
Charities and Education.—At a cost of $5,000,000 a new medical school, hospital and children's hospital, occupying several city blocks fronting on Forest Park, have been completed since 1911. The hospital, opened in 1914, represents an investment of $2,000,000, the sum left 50 years ago by Robert A. Barnes, a banker whose name the institution bears. The medical school, a department of Washington University, includes laboratory, anatomical, clinical and other buildings. In 1914 James Campbell left an estate, valued at $10,000,000, in trust to St. Louis University (subject to the life income of certain surviving relatives) for the erection and support of a hospital and for the advancement of medicine and surgery. From the surplus of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was constructed in 1914 the Jefferson Memorial costing $485,000 and devoted to the collections of the Missouri Historical Society. On new public school buildings, and expansions of old, St. Louis expended during 1910-20, $3,177,000.
Finance.—In 1920 the assets of the banks and trust companies of St. Louis were $637,615,811.45, and bank clearings were $8,294,027,135; in 1910 the latter were $3,727,949,379. The First National Bank, with total resources of $155,953,137, was formed in 1919 by a consolidation of three existing banks.
Commerce and Industry.—According to the records of the Merchants' Exchange and the Chamber of Commerce, 35 lines of industry in the St. Louis district did a business in 1920 of $1,582,957,145. Some of the largest items of wholesale trade in 1920 were dry goods, $240,000,000; carpets, rugs and linoleums, also $240,000,000; boots and shoes, $175,000,000; groceries, $175,000,000; railway supplies, $210,000,000; hardware, $115,000,000; foundry products, $125,000,000. St. Louis receives 70,000 H.P. by a 110,000-volt transmission line from the Keokuk dam in the Mississippi at Keokuk, Ia. Motor licenses issued in 1914-5 numbered 9,867, and 45,949 in 1919-20. The position of St. Louis as the largest horse and mule market in the world was maintained, the volume of business in 1919 being $50,000,000. The city continued to be the largest primary fur market of the world, with sales of $27,200,000 in 1920. Sales of meat products in 1919 were $128,000,000; hog receipts, 3,650,534; head cattle receipts, 1,500,000. The foreign trade of St. Louis was $100,000,000 in 1920, an increase of $25,000,000 over 1919. The total tonnage shipped out of St. Louis in 1920, domestic and export, was 29,036,405 (by rail) and 166,140 (by water); tonnage received in the same year was 43,104,519 (by rail) and 177,925 (by water).
The more important new buildings of the period 1910-20 with the amounts they cost were: the Statler hotel, $3,000,000; the Warwick hotel, $400,000; the cathedral of St. Louis, $2,000,000; the Missouri athletic club, $500,000; the Railway Exchange, $3,000,000, 18 storeys, covering an entire city block; the University club, $600,000; the Young Women's Christian Association, $500,000; the Boatmen's bank, $750,000; the Arcade, $1,250,000; the Post-Despatch building, $500,000; the Bevo Manufacturing Company, $1,000,000. The cost of new buildings in 1919 was $20,538,450.
The St. Louis Republic, a morning newspaper founded in 1808, was purchased in 1919 by the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (a Republican paper), and discontinued. This left two morning newspapers, the Globe-Democrat, and the Westliche Post (German). There was a marked increase in the circulation of the evening papers.
When the Armistice was signed Nov. 11 1918 one in 13 of the city's pop.—56,944—was in the army, navy or marine corps. The total casualties were 2,511, of which 1,384 were killed in battle. Of the three Liberty Loans, St. Louis took the equivalent of 25% of the assessed value of the city's realty and personalty. On the third, fourth and fifth calls for loans the St. Louis Federal Reserve district was the first to subscribe its quota. On the third loan the city subscribed $65 for every man, woman and child, nearly three times the quota. (W. B. St.)