Soulard: St. Louis's Oldest Neighborhood

The Soulard neighborhood is one of the oldest residential districts in St. Louis, and its name traces to a refugee from the French Revolution. Antoine Soulard arrived in seventeen ninety-four, a former naval officer who had fled the upheaval in France.

He became Surveyor General for Upper Louisiana under Spanish authority, accumulated land through grants and his seventeen ninety-five marriage to Julia Marie Cerré, daughter of a wealthy merchant. When Antoine died in eighteen twenty-five, Julia inherited the estate and began subdividing it, selling lots to the immigrants who would define the neighborhood's character. She also donated land to the city for a public market.

The resulting community of brick row houses, a farmers market with roots stretching back generations, and later German and Irish immigrant households became the dense urban heart of South St. Louis.