The St. Louis Car Company was formed in April 1887 to manufacture and sell streetcars and other kinds of rolling stock of street and steam railways supporting the traction industry.

During the two world wars, the company manufactured gliders, trainers, alligators, flying boats, and dirigible gondolas.

[1] The firm went on to build some of the vehicles used in the transit systems of New York City and Chicago, as well as the FM OP800 railcars manufactured exclusively for the Southern Railway in 1939.

Meissner was president of the company, one of the nation's largest manufacturers of railroad and light rail cars, and the St. Louis Aircraft Corporation.

[3] In 1964, St. Louis Car completed an order of 430 World's Fair picture-window cars (R36 WF) for the New York City Subway and was building 162 PA-1s (110 single units, 52 trailers)[4] for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for their use on the Port Authority Trans-Hudson line to New Jersey.