Soulard Market has traded continuously since 1779, the oldest farmers market west of the Mississippi River. Julia Chouteau — widow of Auguste Chouteau, one of St. Louis's founding family — donated this land for a public market in 1838, formalizing what had been an informal trading hub for decades. The market takes its name from Antoine Soulard, a French surveyor who mapped much of the Louisiana Territory after Spain acquired it from France in 1762.
His wife, Julia, was equally notable: she successfully defended their land grant in American courts after the Louisiana Purchase, establishing legal precedent for French colonial property rights under American law. The market you see today was rebuilt in 1929 in a Romanesque Revival style after the original structure burned. On weekday mornings and Saturday mornings, the stalls fill with local produce, flowers, meats, and cheeses — much as they have for nearly two and a half centuries.
Saturday is the big day. Come early. The Soulard neighborhood surrounding the market retains some of the finest examples of French Creole townhouse architecture in the country — two-story brick buildings with iron balconies that would look at home in New Orleans's French Quarter.