Soulard, St. Louis

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Historic Soulard

Soulard (soo-lard) is a historic French neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. It is named after Antoine Soulard who first began to develop the land, and was surveyor for the Spanish government and a refugee from the French Revolution in the 1790s.

It is a residential neighborhood filled with bars and pubs, among other businesses and is one of the oldest communities in the city. Many of the homes there date back to the mid to late 1800s. It is home to the Lemp Mansion, which has been called by Life Magazine as one of the most haunted places in America. Soulard is a thriving, eclectic area, and is home to the largest Mardi Gras celebration in the American Midwest. It is also home to a popular Farmers' market, and the world headquarters of Anheuser-Busch.

The neighborhood is also known for its significant number of gay bars and nightclubs as the area has a significant population of gays and lesbians

[edit] Mardi Gras

Soulard hosts the St. Louis Mardi Gras festival, generally attracting between 500,000 and 600,000 people and growing each year. The event is much like the New Orleans celebration in that it hosts several parades during the Mardi Gras season. On the second Saturday before Mardi Gras, there is a family-oriented "Krewe of Barkus" pet parade. Participants consist of anyone who dresses up their pet in costume, and walks their pet along the parade route. The parade is followed by the informal Wiener dog races. Then, on the Saturday before Fat Tuesday, the more adult-oriented flesh-for-beads parade occurs, although there have been various attempts to reserve a family section at one end of the route. People from all over come to storm the streets with beers and bead necklaces after the Saturday parade. The streets of Soulard, Geyer, Allen, Russell, Anne, Shenandoah, and others are crowded with people from 7th to 12th Street. The Fat Tuesday parade occurs in the evening, and in recent years has been moved just north of Soulard to downtown St. Louis.