History of Frenchtown:
The Frenchtown neighborhood owes its
name to the early French settlers who founded St.Charles and to our
distinctive style of architecture. The district has the largest
concentration of French Colonial style architecture in the Midwest and
the reason the
district was placed on the National Register of Historic
Places in 1991. These simple
structures, constructed from about 1820-50 feature an extended main roof
over raised open air galleried front porches and double front doors
accessing both the living and dining rooms on the main level which are
often mistaken as duplexes. Kitchens were in the walkout basement and
the upper floor was a sleeping loft. Most are built with brick made here
in Frenchtown on cut limestone foundations from quarries nearby. Several
historic homes in the area still retain their summer kitchens: small
detached brick buildings used for cooking, washing laundry and smoking
meats as well as brick carriage houses.
Famous people associated with Frenchtown include
Jean Baptiste Pointe du
Sable, a fur trader of French and African
descent who founded Chicago and spent his last ten years in a stone
house at the corner of Second and Decatur Streets.
Lewis and Clark dined at a home in Frenchtown before departing on
their exploration westward.
Mother Rose Philippine Duchesne founded the Academy of the Sacred Heart
in 1818, the first free school west of the Mississippi at the corners of
Clark and Second Streets. She was canonized by the Catholic Church in
1988 and remains entombed there in the Duchesne Memorial Shrine.
The original school building is
gone but the Convent, built in 1834, still stands.
The arrival of the railroad and large wave of
Ge
rman immigration in the 1830’s after Gottfried Duden and Louis
Eversman published a glowing account of the new frontier spurred groups
and societies to support immigration here.
By the mid 1800’s, Frenchtown was a “city within the city”.
North Second Street was a
bustling thriving commercial district.
Butchers, bakers, tinsmiths and saddle makers all had shops on
the street; many lived above them on the second floor.
Farmers brought their grain to the mill located in the 900 block
and stayed at the boarding house at the corner of French and Second
Streets. The fire department‘s restored hose company #2 at 1123 North
Second Street is now the Historic Frenchtown Museum with changing
exhibits of local interest and walking tour brochures.
The St.Charles Car Company, organized in 1872 and purchased by the American Car Foundry (ACF) in 1899 is located between Second Street and the Missouri River. By 1890 it employed more than 1800 men and was known worldwide as a leader in streetcar and railcar design. By the hundreds they walked our streets and sidewalks to and from work. By 1910 at least one member of every household in Frenchtown worked at ACF. During WW1, they manufactured more than 50,000 army escort wagons. During WW11 they produced hospital cars and eleven tanks a day rolled out of the shops.
Frenchtown is once again enjoy
ing a rise in
popularity as an antique shopping, dining and arts district with the
recent addition of the Foundry Arts Center housed in a rehabbed ACF
building. The influx of
rehabbers and young families is beginning to show in the restored homes
on North Third, Fourth and Fifth Streets.
Recreational opportunities are nearby including the new Eco Park
nature walking trail with overlooks on the Missouri River, camping,
picnic, boat launch, off-leash dog park areas and popular MKT (“Katy
Trail”) rails to trails walking/bike trail with several trailheads in
Frenchtown accessing some of the most beautiful countryside in Missouri.