The newspaper was founded by a printer and a reporter in 1884 as The St. Louis Sunday Sayings.

Renamed The Evening Star-Sayings, it emerged as a competitor to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which had been founded by the merger of two newspapers in 1878.

[1] In 1918, The Star's circulation eclipsed that of local rival The Times[2], which had exceeded 100,000 from 1916 to 1918.

[3] The Times was Republican, while The Star considered itself nonpartisan.

The Star published its final edition on June 15, 1951.