Adjoining the Mill Creek section at the west and running south-west is the River des Peres industrial section, served by two railroads. South of this is the Oak Hill section which has grown up along a branch line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Many industries have abandoned their old sites and established plants on the north-western rim of the city in the Harlem Creek drainage basin. Some of the automobile and stove factories cover many acres. Adjacent to the industrial sections are densely populated tenement districts where most of the unskilled foreign born and negro labourers live. The industrial area includes several cities on the Illinois side, such as East St. Louis, National city, Madison and Granite city. The population of the east side industrial area was (193o) 253,693 (74,347 in East St. Louis). South of East St. Louis is the Cahokia power plant, which supplies power to many St. Louis industrial plants.
The Eads bridge, the first across the Mississippi at St. Louis, was completed in 1874, but was not successful until 1889, when the Terminal Railroad association was formed. In 1937 it controlled 397 m. of track, the Eads and Merchant's bridges, and the Union station, and had 132 locomotives. The McKinley bridge, built by the Illinois Traction company, is independent. In 1918 the St. Louis Municipal (or free) bridge was completed, but because of failure on the part of the city and the Terminal Railroad association to come to agreement, the "free bridge" was not used by the railroads.
Education.—The first permanent kindergarten and kinder garten training school in connection with public schools in the United States was established in St. Louis in 1873. The city maintains (1934) the Harris Teachers' college for white students, the Sumner Teachers' college for coloured students, eight high schools for white and two for coloured children, two vocational high schools, 10 evening schools, 116 elementary schools for white and 20 for coloured children, an educational museum, material from which is available for object lessons in various branches of study in all public schools, and a large stadium for high school athletics. The registration in the high schools for 1933-34 was 19,024; in the vocational and evening schools 13,669; and in the elementary schools 80,820. There were 2,839 in the depart ment of instruction. The day schools cost the city $10,030,441 (72.2% of this for supervisors' and teachers' salaries). The Ro man Catholic Church maintains nine high or college preparatory schools and 76 elementary schools. In or near St. Louis there
are several excellent private schools.
Washington university (1853) is the leading institution of higher learning in St. Louis. The institution is made up of the college of liberal arts, the schools of engineering, architecture, business and public administration, graduate studies, law, medi cine, dentistry and nursing, the Henry Shaw school of botany, the St. Louis school of fine arts, the extension division and the summer school. Most of the buildings are in the Tudor-Gothic style of architecture, and are of Missouri granite with Bedford stone trimmings. The faculty numbers 593, and the students 3,081. The endowment in 1936 was $20,911,986. The institu tion is non-sectarian. St. Louis university is a Jesuit institution founded (1818) as a Latin academy. It became a university in 1832. It is the parent school of six other prominent Jesuit colleges in the Middle West. The university is composed of the college of arts and sciences, schools of divinity, medicine, law, philosophy and science, dentistry, commerce and finance, and education, the graduate school, and a normal school, the last being at Floris sant, Missouri. In addition St. Louis university has merged with it nine colleges, several of which are located in St. Louis county. The faculty numbers about 600, and the students, exclusive of those in the merged colleges, about 3,500.
Other institutions of higher learning in St. Louis or its suburbs are the Principia (Christian Scientist, 1898), Christian Brothers college (Roman Catholic, 1851), Concordia Theological seminary (Evangelical Lutheran, 1839), Xenia Theological seminary (United Presbyterian, 1920), Eden Evangelical college (Ger man Evangelical Synod of North America, 185o), Kenrick Theo logical seminary (Roman Catholic, 1894), and Benton College of Law (1896).
Libraries and Museums.—St. Louis is well supplied with libraries. In addition to the libraries of Washington and St. Louis universities, there are: the Public library (846,519 volumes and over 350,000 pamphlets) with a circulation of 4,077,107, 19 branches in its own or other buildings and 65 stations; the Mer cantile library (173,841 vols.) ; the Missouri Historical Society, housed in the Jefferson Memorial in Forest park, possesses a col lection of nearly 50,000 vols. and about 500,000 mss. which per tain primarily to the history of the Mississippi valley. The soci ety also maintains an archaeological and historical museum and houses the Lindbergh trophies and medals.