Missouri's early court system provided a mechanism for litigants to appeal decisions of the lower courts. The 1820 Constitution granted the court of chancery original and appellate jurisdiction in matters of equity and superintending control over probate matters, with further appeal to the Supreme Court of Missouri. The 1865 Constitution created district courts with original and appellate jurisdiction over decisions of circuit courts, with further appeal to the Supreme Court of Missouri, but not probate or county courts.

Accordingly, most appeals fell within the jurisdiction of the state's supreme court. As the state's population grew, so did its caseload, and by the 1870s, the Supreme Court's congested docket was more than two years in arrears. As Reporter A. Moore Berry later noted in the first Missouri Appeal Reports: "The heavy accumulation on the docket of the Supreme Court, with its increasing accessions from the advancing commerce, population, and wealth of Missouri, demanded an amount of judicial labor which no single tribunal could possibly perform." At the time, about one-third of the population, wealth and commerce of Missouri was located in St. Louis and its surrounding counties.

So when delegates gathered for the 1875 constitutional convention, the St. Louis Bar Association – alarmed at the congestion of local cases on the Supreme Court's docket – urged the delegates to create an intermediate appellate court for the area. The delegates responded to their concerns. In October 1875, voters ratified the new constitution, which took effect November 30, 1875.

This 1875 Constitution created the first of what we now know as the state's intermediate appeals court, establishing an appeals court it called the St. Louis Court of Appeals to hear appeals from and have superintending control over inferior courts in Lincoln, St. Charles, St. Louis and Warren counties and the city of St. Louis. The constitution determined the new appeals court would have three judges chosen from within the territory the court covered and designated the judge with the oldest license to practice law in Missouri would be the court's presiding judges. The constitution required the court to hold two terms each year, directing its first term to be held on the first Monday in January 1876. Eight years later, to further relieve the congestion of cases at the Supreme Court, voters passed a constitutional amendment expanding the St. Louis Court of Appeals' territorial jurisdiction to 51 additional counties.

News accounts from January 1876 reflect the new appeals court's judges – Chief Judge Thomas T. Gantt and Judge Robert A. Bakewell of St. Louis and Judge Edward A. Lewis of St. Charles – held their first meeting Monday, January 3, 1876, in the "consultation room" of the circuit court judges. The court subsequently took over the Supreme Court's old chambers  on the second floor of the southwest wing of what is now known as the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis. A law library was located in the southeast wing. 

In 1908, the St. Louis Court of Appeals and law library relocated to the 17th floor of the nearby Pierce Building on North Fourth Street, with a tunnel under the street connecting the building to the Old Courthouse. 

In 1930, the court moved to the Civil Courts Building, which was dedicated in June 1930 at 12th and Market streets. In the 1970s, the number of judges on the court expanded, and they began to outgrow their space.

Through a 1976 constitutional amendment, the state's judicial branch was unified. Subsequently, appellate jurisdiction was taken from the St. Louis Court of Appeals and the other two appeals court in existence at the time and placed in a consolidated court of appeals, which now sits in three geographic districts. What was the St. Louis Court of Appeals now is known as the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District. In June 1981, the court moved to the Wainwright Building on North Seventh Street.

In 2006, the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, moved to its present home in the Old Post Office in downtown St. Louis. 

 

For additional information, please read "Celebrating 125 Years of Justice: A History of the Missouri Court of Appeals, Eastern District, 1876-2001," written by Joy I. Hannel and edited by Douglas R. Bader.

 

 

Top image: Old Courthouse Square, circa 1851, from the National Parks Services Gateway Arch National Park Archives.

Middle image: Pierce Building, as depicted in advertisement "The Law Library and St. Louis Court of Appeals will Move from the Court House into the Pierce Building," April 10, 1908, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Newspapers.com. 

Bottom image: Old Post Office. Image courtesy Missouri Courts, Jefferson City, Missouri.