One hundred fifty years ago, St. Louis made a decision that would shape the region for generations. That historic decision is now known as the Great Divorce.
The story of the split begins in the mid-1800s, when St. Louis was a growing boomtown, a time when American ambitions of westward expansion were high — so high there was even a serious proposal to move the U.S. capital from Washington, D.C., to St. Louis.
The city looked very different then. People got around by foot or horse on gravel roads. Indoor plumbing and sewers were just starting to be laid down. The urban core stretched roughly three miles west from the riverfront. And the whole area of St. Louis, all the way west to where Wildwood is today, was recognized as one big piece of land.
“What is now the western portion of St. Louis city and St. Louis County was essentially thin-spread farm fields and wild Missouri prairie,” said Andrew Wanko, public historian with the Missouri Historical Society. “You had these very few settlements out in St. Louis County, and the rest of it was just open farmland.”
At the time, St. Louis was divided into seven large regions, each with its own representation in county government. On paper, the representation was designed with future planning in mind, but in practice it created a system in which the dense riverfront city didn’t have a big say in its future.
As St. Louis grew, the city’s elites and industrialists started looking for a way to wrest power from rural St. Louisans and redirect tax dollars to serve the needs of the urban core. They found their chance in 1875 when Missouri convened a convention to rewrite the state's constitution.
In Episode 1 of Meet Me, host Luis Antonio Perez explores how St. Louis made the historic decision to split itself in two and visits a family whose home sits right on the city-county line.
Credits: This episode was written, hosted and produced by Luis Antonio Perez, with story editing by Alex Heuer and Brian Heffernan, Meet Me’s executive producer. Audio mastering by Greg Munteanu. Paola Rodriguez is our engagement producer. Design by Cristina Fletes-Mach. Our theme music is by Kudda & Friends. Special thanks to Jason Rosenbaum, Rachel Lippmann, Chad Davis, Fred Ehrlich, Brian Moline and the Missouri Historical Society.
Grant support for Meet Me comes from the James S. McDonnell Foundation.
Follow us on Instagram @meetmestl and sign up for the Meet Me newsletter.
