All Arts and History in Sainte Genevieve

Sainte Genevieve Memorial Cemetery – Missouri’s Oldest Cemetery  Most historic cemeteries offer orderly rows of weathered headstones, carefully maintained grounds, and clear boundaries separating the living from the dead. Memorial Cemetery operates differently. This is a 5th and Merchant Streets hillside where more than 3,500 people—perhaps up to 5,000—lie in graves that are mostly unmarked, their wooden crosses having rotted away over the 235+ years since the cemetery’s establishment in 1787. The oldest marked grave belongs to Louis Le Clere (dated 1796, though burials certainly occurred earlier), and remarkably, burials continued 15 years after the official 1882 closure when the cemetery had become so crowded and weedy that it posed a health hazard. This is where Missouri’s territorial representative John Scott rests alongside French commandant Jean Baptiste Vallé, where Revolutionary War soldier Jacques Misse sleeps near Civil War Colonel killed at Shiloh, where enslaved people lie in their enslavers’ plots while free African Americans and Native Americans occupy the uphill section, and where Senator Lewis Linn was buried three times—the third interment occurring in 1938 when his nearly 100-year-old corpse was found remarkably preserved in its air-tight, lead-lined coffin, and people lined up to view his face through the window Read more…

Sassafras Creek Originals is hosting Pioneer Days on the weekend of May 6 and May 7, 2023. You will see feature demonstrations by craft vendors in keeping with the store’s colonial-era theme. Food and refreshments will be available, and live music performances are planned for the weekend. Read more…

2019 Ste. Geneviève was featured in this USA Today gallery article about its architectural and historical significance. Read the article HERE. Read more…

Ste. Geneviève Welcome Center 66 South Main Street Ste. Geneviève, MO 63670 Call us at 573-883-7097 or 800-373-7007 For several summers in the 1930s, an Art Colony located in Ste. Geneviève conducted a Summer School of Art. Instead of painting rolling hills or flowers, the artists portrayed the human condition and Depression-era events. Information about the school and some of its creations are on display at the Ste. Geneviève Welcome Center. Gravediggers, portraits, and lime kiln workers are depicted. The Summer School instructors include Thomas Hart Benton, Fred E. Conway, Joseph James Jones, Miriam McKinnie, Joseph John Paul Meert, Jesse Beard Rickly, Aimee Goldstone Schweig, Martyl Schweig, E. Oscar Thalinger, Joseph Paul Vorst, and Matthew E. Ziegler. Another display of Art Colony works can be viewed in the stone building behind the Shaw house. Read more…

49 DuBourg Place Ste. Geneviève, MO 63670 573-883-2731 Website The current, brick Ste. Geneviève Catholic Church is the third Catholic church erected on this block. As Ste. Geneviève was moved to higher ground due to flooding, the original log church was moved here in 1794. A stone structure replacing the log building was consecrated in 1837. As the congregation grew a larger church was required, and a brick building was constructed around the stone one. The stone church continued to be used until the new church was completed in 1880. Then the remaining old stones were removed out the doors. In 1911 this church was expanded again with the addition of the altar apse and the two side transepts. Come inside to admire the stain-glass windows and marble adornments! Read more…