About Soulard

Soulard loves to celebrate. It boasts one of the largest Mardi Gras celebrations in the country, second only to New Orleans, but has a year-round tendency to celebrate anything, anytime. Bastille Day has been celebrated in Soulard since the French designated it a national holiday in 1880. On many weekends, you'll find a street or two blocked off for a party. Perhaps a polka band will be playing, or there will be a general pub crawl, with people hopping on and off the golf carts that Soulardians love to drive to the pubs.

On the weekends, you can go to the Soulard Farmer's Market, a large open-air market selling fresh produce, meat, baked goods, and flowers -- and rugs, socks, perfumes and home decorations, too! There are shops inside the building at the Farmer's Market that are open Wednesday through Saturday, including a great spice shop.

Soulard is located just south of downtown St. Louis, bordered roughly by I-55 on the west, I-44 on the north, Broadway on the east, and the Anheuser-Busch brewery on the south. To the residents of Soulard, going beyond those limits is to go "off island."

It's one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city - many of the homes dating from the mid to late 1800s are still standing. The neighborhood is named for the Frenchman Antoine Pierre Soulard, who was the Surveyor General of Upper Louisiana under the Spaniards, and was again appointed Surveyor General by the Americans in 1804. In 1795 he made a map of the middle Mississippi and Missouri rivers, which was later copied and used by Lewis and Clark in 1804.

The picturesque row houses which begin right at the sidewalk remind you of New Orleans, particularly where second-story balconies have been added (the better to watch the Mardi Gras). In the 1800s, to squeeze in even more housing in a rapidly-expanding, popular area, additional residences were often built on the back lots behind the street-facing houses. In modern times these "alley houses" have gradually been torn down to make way for suburban-style back yards or urban gardens, but some still remain, with wonderful courtyards between them and their street-facing companions. The Greenhouse Getaway is the only alley house still remaining in its block.