24/7 Trauma & Biohazard Cleanup Near Summer Chase Fenton, MO

Fenton was founded on March 23, 1818, by William Lindsay Long, who named the new town for his Welsh grandmother, Elizabeth Fenton Bennett.

Long's original town covered just eight square blocks divided into 80 small lots — an area still known today as "Olde Towne Fenton."

The Fenton area has been inhabited for over 900 years; the Fenton Mounds, two conical Mississippian burial mounds dating to about A.D. 1050–1400, stood near the city's southwestern border until they were leveled in 2001 to build a Walmart Supercenter.

Fenton was first incorporated in 1874, later disincorporated, and finally reincorporated in 1948, when Garrett Hitzert became the first mayor of the modern city and championed its commercial and industrial districts.

Fenton is the only city in St. Louis County that lies entirely south of the Meramec River, which forms its entire northern and eastern boundary.

Fenton had 3,989 residents at the 2020 census, living in 1,562 households, with a median age of 47.0 years.

Fenton calls itself the "City of Parks," with seven fully developed parks covering more than 350 acres — including Fenton City Park and Bud Weil Memorial Park — plus about three miles of bike and pedestrian paths.

Although fewer than 4,500 people live in Fenton, the city's 600-plus businesses swell its daytime population to between 25,000 and 30,000 people.

For half a century Fenton's economy revolved around Chrysler's North and South assembly plants, opened in 1959, which built Dodge Ram trucks and Chrysler minivans before closing in 2008 and 2009; the 300-acre site has since been redeveloped into a logistics and business park.

A neighborhood built near the Chrysler plants still carries car-model street names like Fury, Imperial, Dart, and Valiant.