1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/St Chamond

ST CHAMOND, a manufacturing town of east-central France, in the department of Loire, 71/2 m. E.N.E. of St Étienne, on the railway from St Étienne to Lyons. Pop. (1906) 14,147. The town lies in a small basin surrounded by mountains at the confluence of the Janon with the Gier, an affluent of the Rhone. It has coal-mines forming part of the Rive-de-Gier basin. The milling of raw silk, the manufacture of ribbons and laces of every kind, dyeing and the construction of naval and railway material are the foremost industries. There are also metal-foundries manufactories of nails, heavy iron goods, looms and other industrial establishments.

St Chamond, founded in the 7th century by St Ennemond or Chamond, archbishop of Lyons, became the chief town of the Jarret, a little principality formed by the valley of the Gier. Silk-milling was introduced in the town in the middle of the 16th century by Gayotti, a native of Bologna. Remains are found at St Chamond of a Roman aqueduct, which conveyed the waters of the Janon along the valley of the Gier to Lyons.