The history of the St. Louis area – interesting interwoven stories of Native Americans, French colonists, Spanish authorities, early Americans, African Americans, and German and Irish immigrants - has shaped the distinctive character and environments of our vibrant communities.

Today, that history continues to give this locality and its people a unique sense of identity. In fact, spread throughout St. Louis and nearby counties are the physical reminders of those stories. Discover historic houses, schools, churches, and cemeteries. Visit a banker’s mansion at Benoist House in Affton.

Experience the first public school kindergarten at the Des Peres School in Carondelet. Admire the beauty of Old St. Ferdinand Shrine where Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne lived in a convent. And stroll or drive through the final resting place of heroes and entrepreneurs at Bellefontaine Cemetery & Arboretum.

History unfolds at other sites where the land has been sold leaving farmhouses as a testament to a way of life, like the Myers House and Barn, Sutter-Meyer Farmhouse, and Tappmeyer Homestead, while Willoughby Heritage Farm continues as a working 33-acre farm. At Historic Sappington House, lovely lawns and gardens feature heirloom flowers and herbs. The Hawken family, who handmade the rifle that settled the West, also built the genteel home, known today as the Hawken House Museum.

Some sites boast the original possessions of their families: Campbell House Museum and Field House Museum. Other sites are architectural attractions such as the dog trot style of the Overland Log House and the Greek Revival wonder of Mudd’s Grove. While touring, observant visitors will begin to trace story interconnections and degrees of separation between renowned early St. Louisans and several of these sites.

Experience the past in ways that are accessible and authentic—from Ste. Geneviève in the south, where at the Centre for French Colonial Life, you will glimpse colonial-era Creole households, to Defiance in the west, where at the Historic Daniel Boone Home, you will better understand hardships in the wilderness. In North County, you will appreciate the passage of time from 1790 at the Taille de Noyer log interior to 1860 at Gittemeier House to the 1959 Ferguson History House to the three historic buildings at Brookes Park.

You will gain insight into early Illinois political history to the east at the 1820 Col. Benjamin Stephenson House, and you will encounter politics Missouri-style at the Thornhill Governor’s Estate and at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site. And in the heart of St. Louis, at the Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion, you will savor an antebellum showplace.

By visiting multiple sites, you will learn about the complexities of this region’s expansion, why it is called the Gateway to the West, and how it helped to shape the nation and its people. We hope you will enjoy your travel through time, engaging your senses, as you further understand decades of St. Louis history.