St. Louis City / County Line (Webster Groves, Clayton: for sale, real estate, houses)

[jamesfontaine]

I'm curious, I was looking on maps online and noticed that the line between st. louis city and st. louis county goes right through the middle of houses and properties. What happens if your house or property is split by the city/county line? Do you then have two addresses? See here.

Saint Louis Real Estate & Saint Louis Homes for Sale - Zillow

[marigolds6]

The line is not accurate, so there really are not as many as it seems. If the line splits the parcel, but not a building, then the parcel is split in two (with two different addresses, but only one parcel has buildings anyway). If the building crosses two parcels which are each in different jurisdictions, then the building is considered to be in the parcel that holds the majority of the building. It gets one address, and pays all structure taxes to one jurisdiction and splits land taxes based on the parcel lot lines.

[atler8]

If I'm not mistaken, the line may have crossed any already existing property lines & plots when it was drawn in 1876 when the city of St. Louis separated itself (big mistake!) from the rural areas & greater portion of St. Louis County.
Maybe local residents who are more familiar with the history of that move can give us more information on how it came about as well as the later ramifications of the the separation, such as on property owners who sat aside the line as well as how it affected both the city & the county.
Also, I'd be interested in learning how the setting of the line was chosen or if it was just the city limit line of St. Louis at that time in 1876.
As an outsider, I've always been curious to learn more about the whole affair & have wondered if it impacted the growth & dynamism of the entire metro eventually given that the City of St. Louis was thus relegated to such a tiny area & eventually fell into a massive trend of population loss and decay that could not have been helpful to the fortunes of the overall region.
At the time of the separation, St. Louis was one of the largest & most important cities in America so this would have to be categorized as one of the more interesting & odd moves ever made by a major city.

[Dawn10am]

As far as addresses go, it really doesn't matter. According to the postal service, any ZIP code that starts with 631 is automatically "St. Louis" whether it's actually in the St. Louis city limits or not, and pretty much all of the ZIP codes within the 270 loop are 631XX. So if your house crosses the city-county line, your address is "St. Louis" regardless. Some people choose to use "Clayton" or "Webster Groves" or what have you, but that's not strictly necessary.

[mike0421]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

As far as addresses go, it really doesn't matter. According to the postal service, any ZIP code that starts with 631 is automatically "St. Louis" whether it's actually in the St. Louis city limits or not, and pretty much all of the ZIP codes within the 270 loop are 631XX. So if your house crosses the city-county line, your address is "St. Louis" regardless. Some people choose to use "Clayton" or "Webster Groves" or what have you, but that's not strictly necessary.

Understood, but the zip codes themselves are inconsequential to a home buyer I would think, relative to what school district that house is going to be designated into. If the house lies in the St. Louis City school district boundary, it will not hold the re-sale value that a home on the county side of that boundary will. Not only that, but if the OP has children, then where that house lies becomes VERY important.

[marigolds6]

On Zip Codes, zip codes wholly in St Louis City are marked "SAINT LOUIS", reflecting the name of the city. Zip Codes wholly inside of any municipality in St Louis County are given the name of that municipality. Any Zip Code which cross a municipal boundary in St Louis County is also marked "SAINT LOUIS", but that reflects the name of the county rather than the City of St Louis. It is also valid to use the name of any city in the zip code (so, for example, you could use "WEBSTER GROVES" for addresses in the 63119 portion of Rock Hill).
The reasons all 631 zip codes are SAINT LOUIS is that none of those zip codes cover only one city, but nearly all of them are SAINT LOUIS because they are in St Louis County, not because of St Louis City. No zip codes should cross the city/county border (since the city is treated as a separate county, but the post office has tons of exceptions to their rules. So, I would not be surprised if there are zip codes which bridge the border.