Eureka has about 1,400 more people now than it did 10 years ago.
In figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau after the federal count of the nation’s population taken last year, the city’s population grew by 1,457 from the last Census taken in 2010.
The official 2020 figures show that 11,646 people live in Eureka, compared with 10,189 in 2010.
That’s a growth rate of 14.3 percent, which looks even more impressive when compared with St. Louis County’s growth rate of 0.52 percent over the last 10 years.
Julie Wood, Eureka’s city clerk and economic development director, said she wasn’t surprised when she first looked at the Census numbers.
“We look at these numbers as a real positive,” she said. “It’s about what we expected. We’ve had a few new large-scale developments come into town. The Arbors at Rockwood is now fully built out, and the (Rockwood) school district prepared for that growth by building a new elementary school there. We annexed Windswept Farms (in Jefferson County), which continues to add homes, and smaller growth has come at the Legends and Augustine Heights.”
Wood said posting growth in the Census is a positive thing for the community, because owners of businesses take population into account when determining where to locate shops and restaurants.
“We have shifted from being a bedroom community, where people would go to Clayton or downtown (St. Louis) to work,” she said. “More younger families are wanting to live and work in this area. Because of this, we’ve seen some new restaurants, and our Old Town area has been revitalized.”
The Census figures show that Eureka is growing more racially diverse, as 90.7 percent of respondents in the city identified themselves as white, compared with 94.9 percent in 2010.
“I think that’s absolutely a good thing,” Wood said. “We welcome more diversity, with people bringing new perspectives, making us a better city.”
Wood said because city officials had to redraw aldermanic wards in 2019, when the city annexed Windswept Farms, only minor changes should be necessary this time around.
“We had a couple of wards with only a few hundred people and a couple with more than a thousand or so, so it made a lot of sense to equalize those at that time,” she said.
Wood said she expects further growth during the next decade.
“There is still land within the city to grow, and if we were to take in other areas, in Jefferson County or Franklin County, or we are surrounded by lots of land in unincorporated St. Louis County that may want to come in to our city limits, the growth could be even more. While it’s hard to say what’s going to happen in 10 years, I think we’re definitely not going to see a decrease.”
Wildwood
The Census Bureau reported that Wildwood’s population decreased by 100 people over the last decade, from 35,517 to 35,417, a negative growth rate of 0.28 percent. City Administrator Steve Cross said city officials were not expecting to see a decline.
“The numbers are the numbers we have,” he said. “We were mildly surprised that it declined, as we were expecting a modest increase, maybe a couple of thousand of people. But you never know how many people leave a household or children grow up and leave. But in the end, that’s the number we have to work with for the next 10 years.”
Cross said he doesn’t know to what extent the city’s eight City Council wards will need to be reshaped as a result of the Census.
“Wards 1 and 6 are two of our largest wards (by land size) and two of our more rural wards, but we have yet to complete the process of overlaying our block-by-block numbers with those of the last Census and figuring out how our eight wards need to be redistricted to make the population in each of them approximately equal,” he said. “That will be done in the next month or two.”
Like Eureka, Wildwood’s population has grown more diverse over the decade, with 85.6 percent of the city’s residents identifying themselves as white on the Census form compared with 92.2 percent in 2010.
“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” Cross said. “It’s indicative of the general tone of our region. Certainly, Wildwood has grown more diverse as time has gone on, and we’ve embraced that diversity. I’m glad to see it. Speaking with the businesses in Wildwood, and the churches, it comes as no surprise.”