Also a residential and commercial center, Mill Creek Valley was populated by German immigrants and African Americans, before and after the Civil War.

Notable residents include Lucy A. Delaney (c. 1828–1830 – 1910), who wrote about winning her suit for freedom and became a community leader.

Joseph settled along La Petite Rivière and built a grist mill and a dam along present-day Eighth Street.

[2][3] In 1770, Laclède entered into a contract with the Spanish government to supply bread to visiting Native Americans.

[6] A cholera epidemic spread throughout the city in the spring of 1849, essentially suspending business, church, school, and judicial activities.

Two-thirds of the people who lived near Chouteau's pond, the filthiest area in the city, died of the disease by July 3.

There was talk of draining the pond and installing a sewer system, which was weighed against voter's predilection for low taxes and apathy for the conditions of the poorest people in the city.

[6] After a mass protest, a 12-person Committee of Public Health was established, led by Edward Bates (later United States Attorney General under President Abraham Lincoln).

Remnants of the millpond period—log cabins, hulls of boats, and willow stumps were removed—and deep caves and vaults from an old brewery were extracted.

[7] After the Civil War (1861–1865), poor blacks moved north from southern cotton fields to Mill Creek Valley.

[7] Mill Creek Valley, spanning 465 acres,[4] was the home to hundreds of businesses and organizations, 5,600 residential buildings, and 43 historic churches in the 1950s.

[7] The YWCA, Phillis Wheatley Branch was a center of intellectual life in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood.

Maya Angelou, Mary McLeod Bethune and Butterfly McQueen all visited or stayed in the YWCA's hotel rooms.

[1] Harris–Stowe State University (HSSU) incorporated the old Vashon High School, one of the few buildings that was spared demolition, into its campus.

[4] HSSU unveiled a mural for the campus in February 2018 that was Wells Fargo commissioned in honor of Mill Creek Valley.

[4] As was true with a number of urban renewal projects in the United States, "federal funds were used to systematically discriminate against African Americans and hinder their progress.