Page:Early History St Louis and Missouri.djvu/15



Some of the most pleasing, useful and lasting monuments in history have had their origin in very small and trifling incidents, and are viewed with veneration and delight on account of their artlessness and apparent conformity to everything that surrounds them.

What can be more natural and praiseworthy in the surviving patriarchs and builders of a great city than to leave a history of its date, origin and growth? This subject had long attracted the attention of the old residents of St. Louis, as they saw their older associates who had assisted in building it up in its infancy gradually leaving them, until the last individual was dead, who accompanied Col. Auguste Chouteau to its site and witnessed the first labors for its foundation. A century had nearly elapsed, and more than two hundred thousand people then resided within two miles of the site of the present court house.

The builders of such a city could never let its history perish. More than two hundred and fifty of those who had spent thirty years in its building participated in forming the Missouri Historical Society of St. Louis, at the court house, on the 11th day