Frenchman Clement Delor de Treget ventured up the Mississippi from Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, in 1767 and settled in a small valley that opened onto the west bank of the river. The little French village was first called DeLore’s Village, and after several name changes, including Louisburg and Catalan’s Prairie, in 1794 was officially named Carondelet in honor of Baron Francois Louis Hector de Carondelet, the Spanish governor of Louisiana.

The village was incorporated in 1832. The boundaries of the new town were described as, “commencing at Cave Spring,” extended west to Fourth Street (now Michigan Avenue), turned south and then east to the Mississippi. Broadway was the town’s main street. Other communities surrounding Carondelet were Luxemburg (now Lemay), Mehlville, Mattese and Oakville. St. Louis was its very close northern neighbor.

The ethnicity of the town evolved throughout the years. Its French Creole roots gave way to the great wave of German immigration in 1848, and then a growing stream of Irish, Slavic, and Polish immigrants. The booming growth of the city of St. Louis as Gateway to the West caused the inevitable: on April 4, 1870, by an act of the Missouri legislature, the city of St. Louis annexed Carondelet. It has since become known as a community of South St. Louis; however, it never really lost its small-town individuality.