According to St. Louis County's  Fact Book the county covers an area of 524 square miles and had a 2000 Census population of 1,016,300. The County is an integral part of the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which was redefined in June 2003 to consist of eight counties in Missouri and eight counties in Illinois. St. Louis County’s population in the year 2000 comprised 36 percent of the  bi-state metropolitan area’s population of 2,778,518.

   St. Louis County is also the largest county in Missouri and contains 17 percent of the state’s population. The County’s employment contribution is even greater: Nearly half (48 percent) of the metropolitan area’s jobs are in St. Louis County, as are nearly a quarter (23 %) of the jobs in Missouri.

 
St. Louis County’s 91 municipalities have primary responsibility within their jurisdictions for such services as public safety, planning and zoning, local street maintenance and building code enforcement. The unincorporated area, which contains nearly a third of the County’s population and a third of its area, comes under the direct jurisdiction of County government.

  The tiny municipality is one of the wealthiest in the county and is steeped in history, not only related to President Ulysses Grant, but to other familiar names.