​DE SOTO, a city of Jefferson county, Missouri, U.S.A., on Joachim Creek, 42 m. S.S.W. of St Louis. Pop. (1890) 3960; (1900) 5611 (332 being foreign-born and 364 negroes); (1910) 4721. It is served by the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern railway, which has extensive repair shops here. About 21/2 m. from De Soto is the Bochert mineral spring. In De Soto are Mount St Clement’s College (Roman Catholic, 1900), a theological seminary of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer under the charge of the Redemptorist Fathers, and a Young Men’s Christian Association building. De Soto is in a good agricultural and fruit-growing region, which produces Indian corn, apples, plums, pears and small fruit. Lead and zinc are mined in the vicinity and shipped from the city in considerable quantities; and among the city’s manufactures are shoes, flour and agricultural implements. The municipality owns the water-works, the water supply of which is furnished by artesian wells. De Soto was laid out in 1855 and was incorporated in 1869.