Welcome to Leclaire!

Welcome to Leclaire! A Book about a Place, Its People, and Its History explores the founding of a cooperative community just east of St. Louis in southern Illinois. Its visionary founder, N. O. Nelson, was an immigrant from Norway who grew up in St. Joseph, Missouri, served for the Union during the Civil War, and eventually made himself into a millionaire through savvy business moves within the world of manufacturing plumbing goods. Nelson spent much of his professional life working to make the lives of those around him better. The village of Leclaire was designed to apply both the business (such as profit-sharing) and social practices (living and working in harmony) Nelson had read about and observed first-hand on a fact-finding trip to France. Nelson's urge to pursue this venture was in response to his concern with the well-being of those who lived and labored within the city of St. Louis near the end of the Industrial Revolution. His utopian community would embody the values centered around six subjects: Home, Work, Recreation, Education, Beauty, and Freedom. Ground was broken for this community in 1890. It included, among other things, a factory campus, a school house, a baseball diamond, and many residential streets. It operated as an autonomous community until the financial burdens brought about by the Great Depression caused it to be annexed to the city of Edwardsville in 1934. This former utopia continues to thrive as a popular neighborhood and has been on the National Registry of Historic Neighborhoods since 1979.