Historic St. Louis: 250 Years Exploring New Frontiers

Above: Laclede Landing at Present Site
of St. Louis (detail), by Oscar Edward
Berninghaus, c. 1914.
COURTESY OF THE SAINT LOUIS ART MUSEUM;
GIFT OF AUGUST A. BUSCH, JR.
Below: Vincent Voiture [posing as]
Saint Louis, by French painter Philippe
de Champaigne, mid-seventeenth-century.
Poet Voiture portrayed Louis IX, featuring
items associated with the thirteenth-century
crusading king: royal crown, fleur-de-lis
scepter, ermine skin mantle, and Jesus
Christ’s crown of thorns, remnants of which
Louis allegedly brought from the Holy Land.
COURTESY OF THE SAINT LOUIS ART MUSEUM;
FRIENDS FUND (719:1961).
Arkansas. Thomas Jefferson and other credible
eyewitnesses described Osage warriors as
“most gigantic”—averaging about 6’6” in
height. They were ruthless foes of rival tribes
but reliable friends of the French, who made
them “free men” able to make a living by
providing European muskets over several
decades. In 1725, an Osage chief was the
honored guest of King Louis XV—Onontio,
the “Great Father” in France—and his visit to
the “other side of the sun” represented the
mutual respect among devoted allies.
The French and Indian War had curtailed
shipments of new weapons, however, and the
Osages welcomed Laclede because he could
export their backlog of valuable furs to the
best markets for guns and other premium
products. That European gentleman with business
acumen—a rare founder of a colonial
American city who was not a nobleman, missionary,
military leader, or buckskin-wearing
hunter—succeeded in forging one of the
longest, strongest, and most lucrative multi-
H I S T O R I C S T . L O U I S
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