| Carondelet Neighborhoods of St. Louis, Missouri |
|
|---|---|
| Private residences along a traffic island in Carondelet. | |
| Government | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Missouri |
| City | St. Louis |
| Wards | 11, 13, 25 |
| Statistics | |
| Total area | 1.45 sq mi (3.8 km2) |
| Population (2010) | 8,661[1] |
| Density | 5,973 /sq mi (2,306 /km2) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| ZIP code(s) | Parts of 63111 |
| Area code(s) | 314 |
| Website | http://stlouis.missouri.org/carondelet/ |
| Location | |
| Location of the Carondelet neighborhood within St. Louis. | |
Carondelet ( /kæˈrɒndəlɛt/) is a neighborhood in the extreme southeastern portion of St. Louis, Missouri. It was incorporated as an independent city in 1851 and was annexed by the City of St. Louis in 1870. As of the 2000 Census, the neighborhood has a population of 9,960 people.
Originally, the neighborhood was populated predominantly by French and then later German immigrants. Today the neighborhood contains a mixture of industrial uses along the Mississippi River and residential and commercial uses further from the river. Because it once existed as an independent village, the neighborhood contains some of the oldest homes in St. Louis. Most of the housing was constructed between 1880 and 1930. Housing in the area ranges from modest single story cottages, to apartment buildings, to larger single family homes. Most of the housing is of brick construction.
In a 1799 census, Carondelet was described as "two leagues below St. Louis" and having a population of 181 white residents and 3 African American slaves. [1]
The community is particularly associated with processing lead from the Southeast Missouri Lead District. The affiliation began in the 1840s with the production lead shot shipped in via the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway.
During the American Civil War in the 1860s, 32 ironclad gunboats for the Union Army and Navy were produced at the James Buchanan Eads-owned Union Marine Works shipyards including four of the initial City class ironclads: St. Louis; Carondelet (correctly mispronounced "Ka-rahn-dah-let"); Pittsburgh; and Louisville. The three other "City-Class" gunboats.... Cairo (correctly mispronounced "Kay-roh"), Mound City; and Cincinnati.... were completed for Eads under contract by Hambleton & Collier Company Shipyards in Mound City, Illinois. These seven vessels were the first ironclads produced for the United States government. They were soon joined by a fleet of heavy and light armored vessels....including light draft turreted "river monitors".....which was a decisive factor in Federal victory in the Civil War's Western Theater. The Eads gunboats played key roles in Union victories at: Fort Henry; Fort Donelson;Nashville; Shiloh; Island Number Ten; Memphis;Arkansas Post; and the long and bitter Vicksburg Campaign. Eads' ironclad fleet would later perform well during the ill-conceived Red River Campaign and several of Eads vessels entered "blue water" Navy service and participated in the Federal victory at the Battle of Mobile Bay.
From 1870-1930, Hertz Metal Company operated a lead smelter. It produced bailing wire and also operated a lead smelter. In 1876 Provident Chemical Works became a world leader in production of phosphates from its Carondelet Plant in a process that initially involved lead. In the 1920s the plant was purchased by Swann Chemical Company, and then in 1935 by Monsanto. The River des Peres was rerouted through the plant in the 1930s as part of a Works Progress Administration project. Monsanto spun off the production to Solutia. In 2000 it became part of Astaris and then Israel Chemical Limited. The plant produces 250 million pounds per year of phosphate and phosphoric acid products.[2]