The village is situated at the foot of Mont Pyfarat, culminating at 1381m above sea level, and is located on the outskirts of the forest of Taillard.

Saint Sauveur is particularly popular because it is located on the route to the Rhone Valley (which is very attractive) from the Haute-Loire and vice versa.

[citation needed] In 1061, the lord Artaud Argental bequeathed his property to the monks of La Chaise-Dieu, for them to build a priory at Saint-Sauveur-en-Rue (1062-1401).

During the Revolution, March 16, 1794, Father Robert, vicar of Saint-Sauveur-en-Rue, refractory priest who refused to take the oath, was executed in Lyon after secretly hearing the confessions of many detainees.

Saint-Sauveur-en-Rue became prosperous in the early twentieth century by exploiting the Taillard forest to produce shoring timbers for the mines around Saint-Étienne.

In the early 1970s, a seismic sensor station was built in the old railway tunnel in Badol (a hamlet east of Saint-Sauveur-en-Rue).

Today, the village is mainly a bedroom community; many people work in Saint-Étienne, the basin annonéen and the Rhône Valley.