Flooring In Portage des Sioux
Fifty Minutes Out, At The River

Portage des Sioux is the farthest of the towns we page in St. Charles County: 36.7 road miles east northeast of the showroom, about 50 minutes each way. The Census Bureau counted 331 residents in the 2020 base and 323 by the 2024 estimate, in 143 housing units on 0.575 square miles of Mississippi bottomland. The median house here was built in 1971, and 31.5 percent of the stock went up in the 1950s. Call 636-332-0654.

143 housing units, and 31.5 percent of them from the 1950s

The whole housing stock here is 143 units, per the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey five year estimates for 2020 to 2024. Of those, 85.3 percent are single-unit detached and 82.9 percent are owner occupied, and the median build year is 1971. One decade stands clear of the rest: 31.5 percent of the housing went up in the 1950s. The other decade shares carry margins of error too wide to state as fact, which in a stock this small is honest rather than evasive. A house standing here since the 1950s has had its floors decided more than once, so what is under the current covering is a question the free in-home measure answers.

The last road into town is a short state spur called Route J

The state route that actually runs into the town is Missouri supplemental Route J, a short spur whose southern end meets Route H and Route 94 just south of Portage des Sioux. From 15570 Veterans Memorial Pkwy in Wentzville that is 36.7 road miles east northeast and roughly 50 minutes, long enough that it is booked as a block of time rather than squeezed between closer stops. Samples ride out with the person measuring, so the visit does not need a second trip.

The road carries a warning of its own. St. Charles County's adopted floodplain plan calls Highway 94 North 'a major access road' to the City of Portage Des Sioux and other northern portions of the County, and warns that flooding of it 'can result in the isolation of these communities and residents.' When the river is high, the road gets checked before a time is confirmed.

Flat bottomland, and bluffs that belong to the far bank

Portage des Sioux sits on flat Mississippi River bottomland rather than upland or bluff. An 1880s county history described the township as 'almost entirely level ... "bottom" land, and ... remarkably productive,' with part of it 'subject to overflow in extreme high water.' The bluffs people look at from town are across the water in Illinois, toward Alton, and the county's plan adds that those northern bank bluffs force the river southward into St. Charles County in high water.

That is a measuring instruction rather than a scare paragraph. The same plan records that the 1993 flood overtopped levees, 'completely inundating the communities of West Alton and Portage Des Sioux.' A house that has taken water carries that history under its finished floor, so the structure, the crawl or below grade conditions and any repair never brought back to level get read first.

Streets that still list the families who camped on the site

The town is named for a portage: canoes were carried overland across the peninsula to the Missouri River. The settlement dates to the close of the 1790s, when a colony organized at St. Charles received a Spanish land grant and Francis Saucier was appointed commandant. Census road data for the streets inside the city limits still includes Common Field Street, Saucier Street, Le Sieur Street, Le Faivre Street, Lepage Road and Dumond Street, and Saucier, Lepage, Dumont and Leseuer all appear among the original settlers named in the petition for a grant of Commons recorded in that county history.

A shrine out of the 1950s, and the town as of 2024

The Our Lady of the Rivers Shrine stands here overlooking the Mississippi. By the shrine's own account, heavy rainstorms in the early 1950s threatened to flood the town, Father Schlattman called the town to prayer, the town was spared, and the statue was erected in 1957. St. Charles County's own e-newsletter described the town in May 2024 as 'the town with the Virgin Mary statue on the Mississippi, where they have the blessing of the fleet every summer.' The same newsletter carries the quieter half: as of 2024 the mayor said two active marinas had been lost and no store is open in town, and the parish school has closed, though the church still holds a Sunday Mass served from St. Charles Borromeo.

An airport that floods, and one school district

St. Charles County Regional Airport, Smartt Field, carries a Portage des Sioux address on Grafton Ferry Road and is the county's one public use general aviation airport, low enough that it takes on water when the Mississippi runs high: the county records flooding on airport property in 1979, 1983, 1985, 1986, 1993 and 2008 among other years. Children in town attend the Orchard Farm School District.

What the measure turns up at an address on the bottomland

The measure is free, it happens at your house, and at this distance it is one visit that covers everything: every room in scope walked, real dimensions taken, and what is down now looked at before anyone talks about product.

• What is under the current covering, room by room, in a stock whose median build year is 1971.
• Height changes at doorways and thresholds, where a house from the 1950s disagrees with itself.
• Crawl and below grade conditions, on ground the county maps as floodplain.

Nothing is ordered off a phone estimate. The business holds 140 reviews at a 5.0 average, and the two that are not five star are still on the page.

Where to read next from a town of 143 units

For how this river town fits its county, and the index of the other towns on that side of the line, read St. Charles County. For contrast with a larger and differently built stock, Creve Coeur and Eureka carry their own pages. To handle material first, the showroom sits at the other end of those 36.7 miles.