ST CHARLES, a city and the county-seat of St Charles county, Missouri, U.S.A., situated on the N. bank of the Missouri river, about 20 m. above its mouth, and about 23 m. N.W. of St Louis. Pop. (1910) 9437. It is served by the Wabash and the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railway systems, and by an electric railway to St Louis. A great steel bridge, 6535 ft. long (built 1868–1871), crosses the river and gives entry to the Wabash railroad from St Louis. It has three spans of 305 to 321 ft., which at the time of their construction were the longest of their kind in the world. A highway bridge also crosses the river, and is the only waggon bridge between Jefferson City and the mouth of the river. At St Charles are a Presbyterian school for women (Lindenwood College); St Charles Military College(Methodist Episcopal, 183 7), the Academy of the Sacred Heart (1818); St Joseph's Hospital, and the Emmaus Asylum for Epileptics. St Charles has important car works (among the largest in the United States), a large shoe factory, flour mills, brick and tile yards and breweries. St Charles county is very fertile, and its yield of wheat is especially large. At the sand works at Klondike, in the southern part of the county, large quantities of silica are blasted, crushed, bolted and shipped.
A French settlement was begun at St Charles in 1769, and soon thereafter a Spanish official was placed in residence. St Charles was organized as a village under territorial law in 1809, and in 1849 was chartered as a city. It was the first capital of the state (1820-1826).