This is just the beginning! Our collection holds over 300 years of history, including rare newspapers, obituaries, marriage records, birth records, and so much more—most of which you won’t find anywhere else!
Mercantile Library: St Louis’s 140 year old cultural beacon
The Mercantile Library, oldest circulating library west of the Mississippi, founded 1846 by seven St. Louis merchants, hosted Pulitzer and Twain, with a 60 000 to 65 000 Western Americana collection. It remains a quiet, member backed institution with fewer than 2 000 members and no public membership drives.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
ST. Louis
Joseph Pulitzer
Mark Twain
Oscar Wilde
William T. Sherman
George Caleb Bingham
Mercantile Library
Elizabeth Kirchner
Mercantile
Mississippi River
Kirchner
Pulitzer
Post-Dispatch
the Mercantile