St. Louis County wraps around the independent city without including it — dozens of municipalities from Clayton and Kirkwood to Berkeley, Florissant, and Bridgeton. Its industrial history leans toward twentieth-century manufacturing and aerospace: the plants of the inner-ring suburbs, the aircraft and defense work near the airport, and the utilities and process operations that served a growing metropolitan population. Workers at these facilities may have been exposed to asbestos-containing materials in boiler rooms, on process piping, and throughout high-heat equipment.
Claims arising in St. Louis County are venued in the Twenty-First Judicial Circuit, seated in Clayton — a different court from the City of St. Louis (Twenty-Second) next door, and a distinction worth getting right when a case is filed.