The Ville is a historic African-American neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri, with a rich history of African-American education, business, entertainment, and culture. St. Louis Avenue bounds the community on the North; Martin Luther King drives on the South, Sarah on the East, and Taylor on the West.

The Ville originally belonged to Charles M. Ellard, a florist, and horticulturist who maintained a conservatory and greenhouses on the tract of land. During Elleard’s twenty years at his property on Goode and St. Charles Rock Road, the area became known as Elleardsville. Elleardsville was formally incorporated into the city of St. Louis in 1876 following the passage of the city’s new charter separating it from St. Louis County. In the late nineteenth century, the neighborhood attracted German and Irish immigrants and some African Americans. The neighborhood’s first black institution, Elleardsville Colored School No. 8 (later renamed Simmons School), opened in 1873.

Before the United States Civil Rights movement, restrictive covenants, and other legal restrictions prevented African-Americans from finding housing in many city areas. As a result, the African American population of St. Louis became heavily concentrated in and around the Ville. Between 1920 and 1930, The Ville went from 8% to 86% African American.

The neighborhood quickly became the cradle of African-American culture and home to many black professionals, businesspeople, and entertainers.

Through the subsequent 50 years, the Ville nurtured a rich heritage for the black population of the City of St. Louis and was home to several critical black institutions, including Simmons Elementary, Sumner High School, the first high school for black students west of the Mississippi River, Poro College, Lincoln University Law School, Stowe Teachers College, Tandy Recreation Center, Annie Malone Children’s Home, and Homer G. Phillips Hospital, which, at the time, was responsible for training more black doctors than any other hospital in the world.

The Ville is a testament to the resilience of African Americans in the United States and St. Louis. Though the less than half a square-mile community was formed out of the racism, restrictions, and exclusionary policies of the St. Louis region, it grew to influence the development of black history far outside of the neighborhood’s confines and across the United States developing black doctors, entrepreneurs, educators, and entertainers.