Who Named the Meramec River? (2024)

Who Named the Meramec River?

Arnold’s first highway for trading and industrial shipping is the Meramec River. It has been crucial for life support since prehistoric times, and one of Missouri’s greatest recreational resources for more than 150 years.

Origin of the name Meramec is full of contradictions. Some say it means “ugly fish” or “catfish.” Some pioneers called it “The River of Death.” Its name is attributed to various Native American Indian tribes and, also, to early Jesuit missionaries and even British cartographers.

According to author H. R. Schoolcraft in his book “A View of the Lead Mines of Missouri,” the “Miaramigoua River” – known today as the Meramec — was discovered by a French Jesuit priest, Father Jacques Gravier, on his voyage down the Mississippi in 1699.

Father Gravier put into French spelling the sound that Native American Indians called the river. One of those was “Miaramigoua,” which Father Gravier’s journal showed he translated as “the river of ugly fish.”

Michael Mccafferty, author and Algonquian linguist, says the river’s name appears in a dictionary produced by 18^th century Jesuit missionary Antoine-Robert Le Boullenger, and that, in the Miami-Illinois Native American language, the name is “Myaarameekwa.” In Algonquian dialect, “Myaara” means ‘ugly’ and “meekwa” means ‘fish’.

Over the centuries, English speakers mutilated river names that French explorers transcribed. Translated into English, some names supposedly meant “Water of the Bitter Spring,” perhaps due to high sulfur content, or “Waters of Death” due to drownings. Early maps labeled the river “Maramig” and “Mirameg.” Its pronunciation became Marameg, and then finally Meramec, sometimes spelled as Maramec.

Fun Times

I wonder how many scholarly experts have climbed aboard an inflated inner tube or a canoe with a rope attached to a cooler full of supplies to spend a day – or weekend – floating merrily, merrily, merrily downstream with friends or family members?

Dozens of different campgrounds, canoe liveries and rural resorts dot Meramec shorelines, especially along the Upper Meramec away from big communities. They attract thousands of fun seekers every year (although pandemic numbers may vary).

The term “downstream” for the Meramec means both north and south because with its twists and turns the river flows both ways and, direction wise, west-east, too. See map https://mdc.mo.gov/sites/default/files/2021-12/200_2021_MeramecRiver.pdf .

Dan Drees of the Sierra Club-Missouri Chapter, wrote, “The headwaters of the Meramec River begin in the Ozarks near Salem, traveling 228 miles to join the Mississippi River south of St. Louis. The Meramec’s spring-fed waters have provided a summer haven for river recreation…the Meramec is also a haven for the greatest variety of aquatic life in the Midwest, giving observant explorers constant opportunities to discover the wealth of aquatic life it shelters.”

The Meramec drains 3,980 square miles in its journey to the Mississippi River near Arnold’s Flamm City Park. Native Americans living by the Meramec at various times represented some 20 different tribes including Delaware, Shawnee, Fox, Sauk, Kickapoo, Otoe-Missouria, and the fierce Osage. Some of those native peoples were subsets of Algonquin families that originated in Canada. Many died out after Europeans populated the colonies, or the U.S. government moved them to other states starting in the 1830s.

Ancient evidence of Native American tribes living near the Meramec ranges from flint digging tools and arrowheads, to shards of fabric, pottery, and teeth, to ancient graves uncovered by archeologists.

Moody Waters

Pacific resident Jo Schaper is an author, historian, poet, and secretary of the Meramec River Recreation Association. Its members include government officials, environmentalists, trail groups, and citizens promoting Meramec River activities with careful environmental stewardship. (https://www.facebook.com/MeramecRRA/).

“The Meramec can be very destructive,” Schaper asserts. “It can be very beautiful. It has many moods.”

“The basin is blessed with springs, caves, and mineral resources, amongst them lead, zinc, iron, ‘glass sand,’ sandstone, limestone, and dolomite… The river flows between spectacular bluffs in many areas,” she says.

About 1820, a prospector named Thomas James discovered iron ore in Phelps County and built the Maramec Iron Works. “Such industries established upstream helped open up the river valley to settlement,” Schaper says. “The Meramec became a shipping route for pig iron, timber, and other goods on flatboats and shallow draft steamboats. Small towns arose settled by Germans, Scottish, Irish, English farmers, and businessmen, as well as settlers from Appalachia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.”

“The lower Meramec developed an extensive truck garden and farmer’s market trade with St. Louis merchants…River bottom farmers planted wheat, corn, and soybeans. The ‘glass sand’ industry grew, as did sand and gravel extraction for projects…shipped to rail points by barge, then by rail to places beyond.”

History aside, among fun-minded people today the Meramec River may be best known for camping, canoeing, cave exploring, fishing, hiking, kayaking, orienting, float trips, and environmental protectionism.

Towns with Meramec River access, and varying facilities, include Bourbon, Cuba, Eureka, Leasburg, Kirkwood, Pacific, St. James, Steelville, Sullivan, Valley Park and Arnold. In rainy seasons, each may have to deal with high water or dangerous floods.

Maramec Spring Park (alternative spelling) about 85 miles from Arnold in St. James, is one of many magnets for rainbow trout fishing, camping and recreation. It pumps 100 million gallons of fresh water a day, bubbling up from 350 feet below ground. The park is open all year. Missouri trout season is March 1-October 31. Camping season is February 28-October 30. Catch and Release fishing is November-February. Visit http://www.maramecspringpark.com/

Bennett Spring State Park is another popular destination for camping, rainbow trout fishing, and hiking because of its powerful natural spring, convenient river access and central location near Lebanon. See https://mostateparks.com/park/bennett-spring-state-park.

The Meramec is well known for rainbow trout, yet the river also has healthy populations of large- and smallmouth bass, perch, and catfish. On Facebook you’ll find the Lower Meramec Bass Club and Upper Meramec Bass Club. Based in Arnold, the Lower Meramec Bass Club hosts a tournament every Tuesday night, water depth permitting.

Trey Harpel has fished the lower Meramec for 15 years by launching his boat from Arnold’s Flamm City Park. He is a consultant for the Omega Custom Tacklecompany of Festus. ( https://omegacustomtackle.com/ ). “These days I go for bass at least once or twice a week, depending on how high the water is,” he says. “I have the best luck fishing where small creeks enter the river. The Meramec also has white bass, a hybrid fish that can be big.” Harpel’s own fishing reel service and repair business serves professional fishermen and sportsmen.

Clean Up

Good times on the Meramec River come at a price: Garbage, water pollution, junk, and damaged habitats. The not-for-profit Nature Conservancy and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources are extremely concerned about the Meramec River’s health and welfare now and in the future.

Their studies show that the Meramec has been historically threatened by wastewater discharges, livestock mismanagement, mining slag runoff, stream bank erosion, urban and suburban development, sediment buildup, garbage, and pollution resulting in poor water quality and spoiled wildlife habitats. (https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/places-we-protect/the-meramec-river)

The Nature Conservancy-Missouri Chapter worked with 29 different ecological groups to produce a Meramec River Conservation Action Plan as a blueprint for concerned organizations to use as a guide to help resolve the situation. https://www.nature.org/content/dam/tnc/nature/en/documents/meramec-river-conservation-action-plan.pdf. Projects such as theGrowing a Healthy Meramec Projectare having positive conservation impacts.

If you talk with Brian Waldrop, you may think he eats, sleeps and dreams about saving the Meramec River from pollution while preserving its natural beauty. You wouldn’t be far wrong because, Waldrop says, “It’s a way of life.”

Waldrop is an Arnold native who oversees eleven counties and the city of St. Louis as the St. Louis and Southeast Regional Stream Team Assistant for the Missouri Department of Conservation. “If we see a Clean Stream problem, we go there to work with local ‘clean streamers’ to manage river clean-ups, conduct water quality monitoring, and manage other initiatives,” he says

To see Waldrop and other ‘Clean Steamers’ salvaging a 500-pound metal buoy at Cora Island near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers on January 16, 2022, click here https://www.facebook.com/arnoldstreamteam211. This video is an example of what Arnold Stream Team 211 volunteers set out to accomplish almost every month.

“The Stream Team is a group of volunteers dedicated to cleaning up the Meramec River and its tributaries, and anywhere else we’re needed!” says Waldrop. He was hired by Missouri’s Department of Conservation in 1993 to help organize Arnold Stream Team 211 after floods in the 1990s left tons of garbage, junk, trashed mobile homes, broken road signs, thousands of old tires and other rubbish in the Meramec River Basin.

Saturday, March 5, 2022, is the Stream Team’s Annual Wintertime Cleanup, a day of hard work, volunteer achievement and fellowship. To help, sign in that day at 8:00 am at Arnold City Park for a cleaning assignment, t-shirt, gloves, and garbage bags. Breakfast and lunch will be provided. When Waltrop says “We’re having a cleanup” he means that volunteers, in one day, may salvage 500 old tires, 150 rusty barrels, a few sunken old boats, and tons of junk.

“At river cleanups, you’ll see Arnold Stream Team 211 with our boats, kayaks, canoes, wrenches, saws and pulleys to capture as much rubbish as we can,” he says. “Almost any weekend, you’ll find volunteers on the Meramec, chipping away at the watershed’s massive amount of trash.”

Jo Schaper observes, “The Meramec is considered a recreational river all the way to its confluence with the Mississippi, and though it is unlikely the lower Meramec will ever return to its pristine beauty, we can still strive to preserve, restore, and cherish what we have.”

1774 – John Hildebrand, German immigrant, arrives from Monongahela County, Pennsylvania. He is the first white settler in what is now Jefferson County. He develops the Meramec settlement rear Saline Creek with a protective fort.

1776 – French surveyor Jean Baptiste Gamache gains a grant from the King of Spain to build a Meramec River ferry and widen Indian trails into a road between St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve. He is also among this area’s first non-Indian settlers.

1798 – John Clark, a Methodist preacher from Scotland, delivers the first Protestant sermon west of the Mississippi River. Protestant ceremonies are prohibited in the Spanish Territory, so Clark preaches from a boat on the Mississippi to pioneers on shore.

1803 – In the Louisiana Purchase that President Thomas Jefferson negotiated with Napoleon Bonaparte, the colonies acquire 828,000 square miles of unmapped land west of the Mississippi River, mostly inhabited by Native Americans.

1806 – French trappers call this area “The Missouri Territory.” The nameMissouriis Algonquian for “people with canoes made from logs.”

1807 – St. Louis is called “Gateway to the West” as mountain men, adventurers, and pioneers head northwest following Louis & Clark’s Missouri River route to the new frontier, and trading along the Mississippi.

1812 – Fear of Native American Indian raids start to fade after the War of 1812. When the colonial army wins the war in 1815, the military begins to protect local settlements from hostile tribes notably the fierce Osage.

1815 – Lead, iron ore and zinc found in south- and west-central Missouri. The minerals are sent to St. Louis from Jefferson County on the Meramec and Mississippi River.

1817 – The Zebulon Pike, the first steamboat to reach St. Louis, labors up the Mississippi for its riverfront arrival on August 2. Hundreds of onlookers cheer it as new progress for the “Gateway to the West.”

1818 –The Missouri Legislature votes to divide St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve into a new county. The 657 square-mile county borders the Mississippi River and named for President Jefferson.

1818 – Jefferson County’s first county seat is at Herculaneum. The First Circuit Court for the Northern Circuit of Missouri meets in a cabin; it taxes owners of horses, mules, cattle, slaves, billiard tables, mills, tanneries, and distilleries.

1821 – Missouri enters entered the Union as a slave state after Congress votes to make slavery illegal in most territories, except Missouri. That legislation is known as the Missouri Compromise.

1824 – The community of Sandy Mines takes shape when lead is discovered in Jefferson County. Ownership of the small mine there changes several times in its 100 years of operation.

1824 – French families in St. Louis named Chouteau, Laclede and Soulard, buy huge tracts of land in Jefferson County for less than fifty cents per acre in a foreclosure sale. They profit by selling land to new immigrants.

1826 – Jefferson Barracks opens with six officers and 245 enlisted troops. It is a vital U.S. Army presence. Its first conflict is the Black Hawk War when soldiers push “hostile Indians” into Iowa territory.

1830 – Union troops begin relocating Native Americans to outside Missouri due to the federal Indian Removal Act of 1830. At the time, there were eight known Native American tribes living in Missouri, including the brutal Osage.

1833 – Two men in Germany form the Giessen Emigration Society to create a utopia with democratic freedoms they do not have under German aristocracy. In 1834, more than five hundred German settlers relocate to Jefferson County and nearby.

1838 – The Jefferson County seat moves to Hillsboro. Its first courthouse is a brick structure, measuring 50 by 33 feet, with a stone basem*nt, four rooms on the first floor and a 31-by-37-foot courtroom on the second floor.

1839 – French immigrant Christopher Frederici sells a tract land to Father Joseph C. Fischer who builds the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, the area’s first formal house of worship.

1840 – Advancements in steam engine technology encourage availability of side-wheeler and paddlewheel steamboats on the Mississippi River. Shallow-draft steamboats with powerful engines will maneuver rough currents, logs, and snags, revolutionizing river travel.

1861 – The Civil War begins. Unionists dominate Missouri, not Confederates, because thousands of new immigrants come from nations including Germany where slavery is forbidden. Jefferson Barracks is a key Union Army stronghold.

1861 – Confederate General Jeff Thompson, “The Swamp Fox,” enters Blackwell Township to destroy the St.Louis,Iron Mountain & Southern Railwaybridge across the Big River. He burns it down to keep Union troops stranded there.

1863 – Union army engineers build the Meramec River Suspension Bridge at the site of today’s Lemay Ferry Road. It is used by primarily by Union troops but also by Confederateguerrillasknown as “bushwhackers.”

1864 – St. Joseph Lead Company of New York buys 946.32 acres of land near Jefferson County at Bonne Terre. It slowly starts to mine lead but, by 1890, it is the largest lead smelter in the United States.

1864 –Jefferson County’s economy evolves when the Iron Mountain Railroad begins transporting iron ore, cord wood, and horses from Francois County and local dairies start shipping huge vats of milk, cream, and butter daily to St. Louis.

1864 – The Battle of Pacific on October 1 protects St. Louis from Confederate invasion. At dawn, a Confederate cavalry brigade torched every structure in town. After furious fighting for hours, the Union’s 16th Army Corps drove the Confederates out.

1865 – On April 9, Confederate General Robert E. Leesurrenders his troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox, formally ending the Civil War. Confederate “Bushwhackers” Jesse and Frank James begin robbing banks and trains.

1865 – April 14, stage actor John Wilkes Booth shoots Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, in the head by while attending the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.

1865 – The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway begins to serve Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. “KT” is its timetable abbreviation and stock exchange symbol begetting the popular railroad nickname “The Katy.”

1866 –Margaret Louisa Frederici, a local girl whose grandfather helped establish the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, marries Union Army private William F. Cody, who later gains fame as “Buffalo Bill” Cody. The Codys stay married for 51 years.

1867 – Construction of Lemay Ferry Road to the suspension bridge the Union army built across the Meramec River boosts the economy by enabling farmers and merchants to reach more markets to buy or sell.

1868 – Miners discover that sand in Jefferson County is of the quality necessary for making plate glass. The American Plate Glass Company opens in Detroit. Jefferson County sand is shipped routinely to Detroit for plate glass processing.

1870 – Local authorities announce conversion of dirt roads to gravel roads in Jefferson County. Mudholes, rocks, and tree roots delay everything. In 1913, the Missouri Highway Department is created, and more new gravel roads are built.

1874 – The Eads Bridge opens in St. Louis as a road and rail bridge across the Mississippi into Illinois, and vice versa. Commissioned by steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, it ends the heyday of riverboat industries, boosting railroad industries.

1891 – Anheuser Busch purchases the Cedar Crest Country Club on lower Tenbrook Road as an employee retreat. Soon it opens for public enjoyment. The grounds host picnics, ball games and other recreations near the Meramec River.

1898 – George Dorris and John French create the St. Louis Motor Carriage Co., the first St. Louis automaker. It produces automobiles from 1899 to 1924. French was one of only three drivers to finish a New York-to-Buffalo race in 1901.

1900 – Frederitzi Hall is a popular spot for people miles around. Like a pioneer shopping mall, it has a saloon, general store, meat market, cream separator, hauling service, and a car-selling business called Anything on Wheels.

1901 – St. Louis is the auto industry hub west of the Mississippi. Many experimental models are granted patents. In addition to St. Louis Motor Carriage Co., manufacturers include Langan, Stanhope, and Moon. Walt Disney owned a Moon Roadster.

1902 – The St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, known as the Frisco, builds Tenbrook Station, hiring local workers to maintain tracks and pumps to fill the trackside water tower. The station lounge hosts a lively tavern for travelers and locals.

1902 – Jefferson County farmers purchase gasoline engine-powered tractors from the Weber Farm Implement Co. when it opens on Main Street in St. Louis near today’s Gateway Arch. George Weber, Sr. is proprietor.

1905– The firstdedicated gas stationin St. Louis opens at 420 South Theresa Avenue. Called a “filling station,” it sells gasoline and oil for any type of gas-powered device, including cars, trucks, and tractors.

1908 – Horses, buggies, and wagons start phasing out as primary modes of transportation. The Weber Farm Implement Co. reorganizes as the Weber Implement & Automobile Company to add cars to its product lines.

1910 – Approximately 100,000 automobiles are registered in the U.S. Most are sold through a variety of channels, including mail order, department stores, and traveling salespeople. Many are sold by owners of gas stations.

1914 – World War I – 23 honored dead in Jefferson County paid the ultimate price. 1914–1918

1921 – The Missouri Highway Commission is created. It shifts highway building management from the local to state level. More than 1,500 miles of newly paved or graveled dirt roads soon help improve Jefferson County.

1925 – Auto dealerships expand. Dozens of U.S. manufacturers make cars; few will survive. The Weber dealership in St. Louis sells cars, trucks, parts, and warranties, and begins to accept “trade-ins” when someone wants a new model.

1925 – Ambitious businessowner Ferd Lang, Sr. builds a general store, tavern, and gas station on land he buys from a man named Louis Arnold. Lang names that land Arnold to honor him. When Arnold incorporates as a city in 1972, Lang’s son Ferd B. Lang, Jr. becomes its first mayor.

1926 – Auto sales explode when U.S. Route 66 is dedicated. The “Mother Road” covers 292 miles in Missouri, entering fromGalena, Kansas, through Joplin, Carthage,Springfield, Waynesville,Devils’ Elbow,Lebanon, and Rolla, throughSt. Louis to Illinois.

1929 – Lynn Warren creates Warren Sign in a paint shop that grows into a company at 2955 Arnold Tenbrook Road that is now one of the Midwest’s largest, specializing in all types of neon and plastic-faced signs.

1933 – Al Capone associate “Hickory Slim” Belford becomes manager of the posh Biltmore Supper Club. The building separates St. Louis County from Jefferson County. Belford moves liquor, poker tables, and slot machines from side to side to avoid raids.

1935 – The Telegraph Road Bridge is constructed to cross the Meramec River between St. Louis County and Arnold not far from what is called Flamm City to accommodate increasing motorized vehicle traffic.

1939 – Military veteran Ferd Lang, Sr., recruits 21 World War One survivors to charter Veterans of Foreign Wars Post # 2593 so veterans can share fellowship, exchange war memories, and manage charitable events.

1940 – Tesson Ferry Road Bridge, known as the Meramec River Bridge, opens to connect the Arnold and St. Louis areas. Engineer Howard Mullins says, “An effort was made to secure a structure of reasonable aesthetic fitness.”

1941 – The Rock Community Fire Protection District originates as the Rock Community Volunteer Fire Association. Money is raised from local business leaders to purchase a Reo Chassis Fire truck, 1,200 feet of hose, and assorted equipment for $1,650.

1941 – World War II – 89 honored dead in Jefferson County paid the ultimate price. 1941-1945

1945 – The first post office here opens to serve the public with general delivery until Harry Rohman becomes the area’s first mail carrier. When he retires in 1972, Flora Arnold becomes the first postmistress.

1948 – The Fox C-6 School District originated as five one-room schoolhouses that consolidated in 1948 to form the Fox Consolidated School District. Schools throughout the area were the Bowen, Seckman, Saline, Lone Dell, and Soulard Schools.

1950 – Korean War –Twelve honored dead paid the ultimate price. 1950-1953

1955 – Vietnam War – 34 honored dead paid the ultimate price. 1955-1975

1956 – Federal Aid Highway Act funds replace old U.S.Route 66with new Interstate-55. Construction starts in 1957. A section of I-55 near Arnold’s Richardson Road cuts a farm in half. By 1975 it connects to Chicago.

1958 – Public Water Supply District Number 1, the first water district in Jefferson County, is created after citizens demand more water to serve the Fox C-6 school and for Rock Community Fire Department to put out fires.

1965 – Don Kozeny and Rich Wagner open Kozeny-Wagner Construction, Inc. with the motto “Building a Better Quality of Life” In 2018 it surpasses $1 billion in contract values since its origin.

1972 – The City of Arnold is incorporated. Arnold’s land was part of a Spanish land grant that Antoine Soulard and Auguste Chouteau, founders of St. Louis, purchased on the St. Louis Courthouse steps in a foreclosure sale on January 5, 1824. The price was $14,929.92 for 6,002 acres of land. New immigrants bought land for settlements. Some – Beck, Flamm City, Maxville, Old Town Arnold, Ten Brook and Wickes – incorporated in 1972 to form The City of Arnold. After the incorporation, business, cultural, educational, fraternal, healthcare, residential, social, and police services mushroomed.

“Bushwhackers” and “Jayhawkers” Terrorized Jefferson County during Civil War

Kansas and Missouri Guerilla Fighters Fought for Revenge

During the Civil War, a three-tiered suspension bridge (pictured) was built by U.S. Army engineers over the Meramec River near the site of today’s Arnold City Park. One of the first three-tiered suspension bridges ever constructed, the purpose of the bridge was to allow Union cavalry from Jefferson Barracks to reach Confederate encampments in Jefferson County and throughout Missouri. In reality, though, the bridge also was frequently crossed by notorious “Bushwhackers” and “Jayhawkers” galloping through Jefferson County to conduct brutal guerilla warfare.

Clint Eastwood’s movie “The Outlaw Josey Wales” reflects accurate encounters between Kansas “Jayhawkers” – also known as “Red Legs” – and is based on true experiences of Missouri “Bushwhacker” Bill Wilson (pictured) during the Civil War.

In the movie, Kansas “Red Legs” burn down Josey Wales’s farmhouse and barn, killing his wife and son. Southern sympathizer Josey Wales decides to kill as many “Jayhawkers” and Union sympathizers as possible.

The real Bill Wilson, like Eastwood’s Josey Wales, was a farmer in rural Missouri. He was wiry and trim like Eastwood, standing taller than six feet.

Like Josey Wales, Wilson always carried two 1847 Colt Walker .44 caliber revolvers in a twin holster. He was known to practice pistol shooting while riding a horse. In the movie, Josey Wales is a deadly straight shooter galloping on horseback.

Hollywood Bushwhackers

Hollywood has taken many liberties portraying Missouri “Bushwhackers” in movies, beginning in 1939 with two films about Civil War “Bushwhacker” Jesse James (pictured), who became a post-war outlaw. The first movie starred Tyrone Power and Henry Fonda in serious, dramatic roles. In the other, cowboy singing star Roy Rogers and sidekick Gabby Hayes enjoy a rooting-tooting romp.

John Wayne (pictured in black hat) won an Oscar for portraying “Rooster” Cogburn as a Missouri “Bushwhacker turned U.S. marshal in the 1969 movie “True Grit.” Nobody forgets Rooster holding horse reins in his teeth at full gallop, guns blazing in each hand. Actor Jeff Bridges (pictured in khaki hat) played “Rooster” in the 2010 “True Grit” remake, said to be more authentic than the original because the script was based on real 1870s dialogue.

Yet no Hollywood movie can accurately portray the hellish brutality that Kansas “Jayhawkers” and Missouri “Bushwhackers” unleashed on their enemies and innocent homesteaders. Missouri was initially settled mostly by Southerners traveling up the Mississippi river.

Many brought slaves with them. Missouri entered the Union in 1821 as a slave state after Congress voted to make slavery illegal in most territories, except Missouri. This state was dominated by Unionists, not Confederates, because thousands of new immigrants came from Germany and other nations where slavery was not tolerated – most European settlers in Missouri were Unionists. Civil War guerillas were generally not enlisted in the military forces on either side but, like ‘Bushwhacker’ Bill Wilson, were farmers brutalized by Union soldiers or by “Jayhawkers.”

Vernon County’s Historical Society reports: “Most were citizens fighting the only way they knew how to protect their homes and families. Some were outlaws using war as an excuse for violence. The term ‘Bushwhacker’ was probably a consolidation of ‘ambush,’ defined as ‘a surprise attack from a concealed position’ and ‘whack,’ meaning to kill someone.”

“Bushwhacker” Bill Wilson

In summer 1861, Union soldiers ransacked Bill Wilson’s Edgar Springs home, abused his family, then set fire to the house, barn, and outbuildings. The Fannin County, Texas, Historical Commission reports: “Bill moved his family to a one room cabin at his mother’s farm and started his quest as a Missouri ‘Bushwhacker.’

Sometimes disguised as a Union soldier, sometimes alone, sometimes with other ‘Bushwhackers’ (Arch Clements, Dave Pool, and Bill Hendricks pictured), Wilson was always lethal. When alone, he claimed to have three friends with him: His best horse and two .44 caliber six shooters. He frequently practiced with his pistols from the back of a horse.”

One day, Wilson learned that four Union soldiers were looking for him. He knew the trail they had to take to their encampment, so he rode fast through woods, arrived at the trail, and waited. When they approached, he drew both revolvers, shooting and killing all four men. He left four dead bodies on the trail and rode away leading four government horses.

When another “Bushwhacker” – Jim Deem – was killed by Union soldiers, Wilson shaved his beard and hid near the Deem home. The “beardless disguise” was his edge. Soldiers came by the next day, asking if he had seen Bill Wilson. “You’re looking at him,” came the reply, followed by Wilson’s pistol blasts as he killed the four men, keeping their horses.

Often, Wilson would follow a Union supply wagon train. When the teamsters camped for the night, he would charge in on horseback, pistols blazing, killing every man he could as others fled.

After the war, Wilson moved to Texas with a troop of men (including Jesse and Frank James) who had served as Quantrill’s Raiders. Until William Quantrill’s death from battle wounds in 1865, Quantrill’s Raiders were Missouri’s biggest, most terrifying “Bushwhacker” group. The anti-slavery town of Lawrence, Kansas, outlawed them and jailed some of their young women. In August 1863, Quantrill led an attack on the town, killing more than 180 residents and burning down most of its buildings.

Jesse and Frank James eventually returned to Missouri to become violent outlaws. In McKinney, Texas, Wilson was seen by two thieves as he sold a wagonload of apples, getting paid in cash.They followed Wilson, shot him dead, stole his money, then buried him. Wilson’s body was reportedly moved to Edgar Springs, 120 miles southwest of Arnold. Clint Eastwood’s movie “The Outlaw Josie Wales” has many parallels to “Bushwhacker” Bill Wilson’s life, and a revealing surprise near the end when a man tells two officers that Josie Wales’s real name is “Mr. Wilson.”

Bushwhacker Sam Hildebrand

“Bushwhacker” Sam Hildebrand’s family, including his brother Frank, lived 35 miles south of Arnold near the Big River in St. Francois County, before Sam killed and plundered his way across Missouri and southwest Illinois.

Sam and brother Frank were southern sympathizers that Kansas “Jayhawkers” wanted dead, so Sam and Frank began hiding in deep woods near their Big River homestead. In October 1861, Yankee vigilantes discovered Sam as he gathered supplies, yet he escaped into the woods. The next day, Sam moved his family to Flat River farther south in St. Francois County, but Frank was captured and lynched by the Big River Mill Vigilance Committee. In April 1862, vigilantes from Ironton ambushed Hildebrand at his Flat River cabin, shooting and wounding him. Sam escaped to the woods as vigilantes ordered his family from their cabin, burning it down with everything they owned.

In his autobiography, published in 1870, he wrote: “As I lay in that gully, suffering with my wounds inflicted by United States soldiers, I declared war. I determined to fight it out with them, and by the assistance of my faithful gun ‘Kill Devil,’ to destroy as many blood-thirsty enemies as I possibly could.”

“Kill Devil” was Hildebrand’s rifle. Whenever he killed someone, he notched the wooden butt. Some historians believe “Kill Devil” was a Spencer .52 caliber carbine or a .44 caliber Henry repeating rifle. Union calvary used both models in the 1860s.

Hildebrand soon visited Confederate General Jeff Thompson in Bloomfield. Thompson allegedly gave Hildebrand a Major’s commission saying, “Go where you please, take what men you can pick up, and fight on your own.” Hildebrand began recruiting masters of stealth, reconnaissance, and disguise for dressing as women or Union soldiers to sneak into camps and towns using rifles, pistols, Bowie knives, and firebombs to kill unsuspecting foes.

Hildebrand’s bloody exploits are chronicled in books including “Samuel S. Hildebrand: Renowned Missouri ‘Bushwhacker,”which he dictated to a pair of newspapermen in 1869. The authors made the illiterate Hildebrand look like a folk hero.

“In their memoirs, ex-guerillas cleanse their histories,” notes author Michael Fellman in his book “Inside War: The Guerilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War.”

“They insist that they always acted exclusively in self-defense, that they avenged personal wrongs personally…and came to the aid of the weak and the downtrodden.”

Yet Hildebrand’s favorite solo tactic was to hide outside Yankee farmhouses early in the morning and, as family members emerged, pick them off with “Kill Devil” like shooting possums in the yard.

In May 1865, Hildebrand and five “Bushwhackers” began a rampage in Jefferson County. Between May 12 and May 17, they raged in Jefferson, Iron, St. Francois, Washington, and Madison counties, killing, robbing, and firebombing in Missouri and southwest Illinois. Hildebrand’s hideouts were caves in Jefferson County and St. Francois County. He kept robbing and killing Yankee sympathizers for seven years after the war ended in 1865.

On March 21, 1872, Constable John H. Ragland in Pinckneyville, Illinois, killed Hildebrand. Ragland was told by farmers that three bandits camped near Pinckneyville were committing brutal attacks and thefts. Ragland and two deputies rode to the camp and dismounted, surprising the outlaws at their campfire. Hildebrand tried to escape by stabbing Ragland with a Bowie knife, but Ragland shot him in the head. The body was taken to Pinckneyville where it was identified by the two men captured with him.

Buried in Illinois, Hildebrand’s body was later moved to Hampton Cemetery in Park Hills, St. Francois County, where he rests today.

President Lincoln

During the war, nearly 110,000 Missourians served in theUnion Armyand at least 40,000 in theConfederate Army. Many others joined pro-Confederate “Bushwhackers” or pro-Union “Jayhawkers.” It’s impossible to know accurate numbers of those guerillas in Missouri; some estimates range from 3,000 to 5,000.

Michael Fellman writes: “President Lincoln had long believed that bad men and badness in mankind had caused the strife in Missouri society and that Christian forbearance ought to pave the way for a social cure. Lincoln’s advice to every succeeding general and political figure in Missouri was that all good men ought to come to their senses.”

In a letter to Unionist Missouri Governor Thomas C. Fletcher, Lincoln wrote: “It seems that there is no organized military force of the enemy in Missouri and yet that destruction of property and life is rampant everywhere. Is not the cure for this within reach of the people themselves? It cannot but be that every man, not naturally a robber or cutthroat would gladly put an end to this state of things…And surely each would do this but for his apprehension that others will not leave him alone. Cannot this mischievous distrust be removed?”

Lincoln was exhausted when an angry Southern sympathizer appeared behind him on April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., shooting the weary President in the head and silencing him forever.

Article by Jeff Dunlap for the City of Arnold

View PDF of Article Resources

Arnold’s Economy has Deep Roots in
Pioneer Days

Animal furs, grain, fruit, soybeans, beef, and hogs defined our local economy in the early 1800s until entrepreneurs began to grow new businesses.

In 1800, with no newspaper published within hundreds of miles, news of Thomas Jefferson’s election as President of the United States did not reach some people here until months after the election. Yet more than any person, Thomas Jefferson opened doors of opportunity for new settlers who rooted their families here.

In return for $18 per square mile paid to Napoleon Bonaparte for the Louisiana Purchase that Jefferson brokered in 1803, the colonies acquired 828,000 square miles of unmapped land west of the Mississippi River. In his deal with France, Jefferson acquired rights to obtain all Native American Indian lands by treaty or by conquest. No other nation could legally claim it.

In 1804, Jefferson commissioned the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery to explore west of the Mississippi to establish trade with Native Americans, explore the northwest territories, and chart a route to the fabled Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean.

As almost every schoolboy knows, the expedition launched on the Mississippi a few miles upriver from St. Louis. About 50 men in a 55-foot keelboat and dugout canoes rowed upstream until they entered the Missouri River at its confluence with the Mississippi and then headed northwest on the Missouri. The expedition occurred from May 14, 1804, to October 16, 1805. Only one crewman died.

Jefferson County is born

In 1818, a 657 square-mile area bordering the Mississippi River was surveyed and named Jefferson County. Settlements were served by navigable rivers including the Meramec, where a ferry crossed to what is today Flamm Park in Arnold. This area began to attract new settlers from the eastern colonies, plus many immigrants from Germany, France, England, Ireland, and Canada.

Later in the 19^th century, Missouri Supreme Court Judge John L. Thomas was asked by the Jefferson County Agricultural & Mechanical Association to write a detailed history of Jefferson County. He presented it as a speech on Independence Day, July 4, 1876. “Indians were numerous,” Thomas asserted. “The Delawares, Shawnees and Cherokees were peaceable and friendly, but the Osages were very savage and warlike, and gave the settlers a great deal of trouble.” Indeed, they did.

In 1821, Missouri entered the Union as the nation’s 24^th state. Some historians contend that Lewis & Clark’s expedition and Missouri’s statehood led to the federal Indian Removal Act of 1830, which relocated native tribes from their ancient lands. There were eight known Native American tribes in Missouri and, until the Act took hold, local settlers were attacked by hostiles including the ferocious Osage. Unlucky families were killed or scalped. Every pioneer family owned at least one rifle, knives, perhaps a sword, and at least one big dog for protection.

The famous artist George Catlin painted the Indians of nearly 70 tribal groups in the 1830s. He described Missouri’s Osage as “the tallest race of men in North America, either of red or white skins.” Historian Ron Soodalter later wrote an article for Missouri Life Magazine that noted, “Aside from their physically prepossessing appearance, the Osage were fiercely warlike, ready to fight with any tribal group that threatened their domain. Proficient in the use of bows and arrows, lances, knives, clubs, and tomahawks…The Osage waged various types of war, from the nonlethal to outright slaughter.”

German settlers

Lewis & Clark described the land they explored as endless areas of lush farmland, fruit trees, plentiful water resources, abundant wild game, and many types of furbearing animals. Yet raids by hostile Osage kept Missouri settlers constantly worried about attacks. That situation began to change after the War of 1812. The war started when Colonialists violently rebelled as England tried to dictate rights of overseas trade. When the colonial army won the war in 1815, the military began to protect settlements. The military presence discouraged Indian attacks; more pioneers settled in Missouri.

In 1826, Jefferson Barracks was built not far away. Marquette University Professor Francis Paul Prucha wrote that the army was “an agent of American civilization on the frontier.” Soldiers at Jefferson Barracks were peacekeepers for the Mississippi River valley, defending against Native American Indian raids.

St. Louis National Public Radio (NPR) recently reported, “In 1833, two men from Giessen, Germany, decided to immigrate to the United States where they hoped to create their own utopia with freedoms and democracy that they did not have under German aristocracy. They recruited hundreds of others and formed the Giessen Emigration Society.

“In year 1834 500 Germans came to Missouri with the big idea of creating a German state as a new state within the United States of America…” NPR reported.

“The 500 immigrants ended up in Missouri in an area that looked like their homeland.” The ‘Missouri Rhineland’ extends west of St. Louis to just east of Jefferson City, mostly along the Missouri River valley and is named for its similarities to the Rhineland region of Germany and the Rhine River.”

For political reasons, they could not legally create a new state. So, most new German immigrants merged with colonial society while preserving traditional German ways of life.

Pioneer Industrialization

Most settlers in the Arnold area, including Germans, were farmers. Blacksmiths kept horses in shoes. Leather craftsmen kept them in bridles and saddles. Farmers grew the animal feed.

Mills were where farmers took corn to be ground into meal; stores to buy necessities were located near mills. According to Jefferson County Library archives, two early mills were Byrnes Mill and Byrnesville Mill, both situated beside the Big River miles apart. Each mill was owned by an Irish immigrant named Patrick Byrne. Each man came from Ireland in 1849, but neither knew the other. Store products were tanned hides, candles, soap, farm fruits or vegetables, and freshly killed game, pork, or beef. Customers usually paid in gold, silver, furs, or animal skins.

In 1864, vast sources of lead, iron ore and zinc began to be mined in Missouri. Jefferson County became more developed when theSt.Louis,Iron Mountain & Southern Railwaybegan transporting iron ore and, also, shipping cord wood to St. Louis. In addition, big dairies shipped huge quantities of milk, cream, and butter daily to St. Louis. The St. Joseph Lead Company in Herculaneum became the largest lead smelter in the United States. In 1868, sand was discovered in Jefferson County for plate glass making by glassmakers in Chicago and Detroit. In 1902, the Frisco Railroad began transporting people and freight through Jefferson County to western and southern states, enhancing local growth.

Bernie Wilde of the Arnold Historical Society & Museum points out that few hard-working pioneers in the Arnold area, even those settled for some years, got rich. Unless they arrived from their place of origin with money to buy a farm or open a business, most settlers worked in positions that barely supported their survival. “After years of renting a place to live, maybe they saved enough money to build a cabin, a small house, or homestead,” Wilde says. Bankers, doctors, and lawyers for many years were almost exclusively located in St. Louis near the Mississippi riverfront, a 60-mile round-trip. Wilde says Jefferson County pioneers who earned enough money to be comfortable were doctors, lawyers, business owners, undertakers land investors, or farmers cultivating hundreds of acres.

The website Passion for the Past provides a good look at farming in the mid-1800s: “(Pioneer) farmer sowed grain by hand; shouldering a bag of seed, the farmer walked up and down the tilled field, fingering the seeds from side to side…with the grain hung over the shoulders, and the steady swing of the right arm throwing the grain as the right foot advanced and dipping the hand into the bag for another cast of grain as the left foot advanced.” An old proverb describes seed sowing like this: “One for the mouse, one for the crow, one to rot, and one to grow.”

Frederitzi Hall was built in 1900. It housed a saloon, a general store, meat market, cream separator, and “Anything on Wheels” store. It also offered produce hauling. A dance hall was upstairs. Concrete blocks were made in the basem*nt.

Photo from Arnold Historical Society.

A nineteenth century hay wagon piled high with a morning’s cut. Farmers headed for their hay fields to cut their hay starting in late June and finishing by summers end. The old saying “Make hay while the sun shines” is very true.

Photo property ofhttp://passionforthepast.blogspot.com/2011/08/early-farming-tools-from-days-gone-by.html

This corn planter from 1875 required two men to operate – one to handle the horse reins and one to manage the planting machine.

Photo property ofhttp://passionforthepast.blogspot.com/2011/08/early-farming-tools-from-days-gone-by.html

Better farming

Mechanical innovation began to help make Jefferson County farming more efficient in the 1850s with new inventions and better tools. Metal harrows pulled by horses spread out plowed land to enable more efficient seed planting. A horse-drawn grain drill distributed seeds evenly and quickly, and then covered them with soil – much better than spreading seeds by hand. A spreader to distribute manure for fertilizer was introduced to spread manure farther and wider than shoveling it off a wagon. In 1860, two brothers in Wisconsin “patented a design for a combination drill and cultivator pulled by a team of horses. This was an immediate success. By the end of the Civil War the brothers’ company was producing 1,300 of the grain drills per year.”

http://passionforthepast.blogspot.com/2011/08/early-farming-tools-from-days-gone-by.html

Allen Flamm was an Arnold Historical Society board member and, also, Vice-Chairman of the City’s Historic Preservation Commission.

“In 1836 my great grandfather Wilhelm Flamm arrived from the village of Merseberg, Germany to farm and began planting apple orchards. He married a French girl named Elizabeth Gamasch whose family was related to Jean Baptiste Gamache, this area’s first settler. By 1920 my grandfather John H. Flamm owned 320 acres that spread to the Meramec River. He planted more orchards growing apples, peaches, pears, plums, grapes, and raspberries. My father Alvin Flamm was born in 1915. I remember my father and grandpa sold most of our products in south St. Louis.

“Our family was a group of hard-working farmers, but I would not consider us well to do,” says Flamm. “In 1937 a man named Leo Ziegler wanted to run a store near our property, but he didn’t know how people would find it. He called the area ‘Flamm City’ because most people knew where the Flamm orchards were.”

Sue Kroupa’s grandfather was Ferd Lang, Sr., a farmer-turned-businessman who built a general store, tavern, and gas station on property he bought from a landowner named Louis Arnold. Ferd Lang, Sr. named the location Arnold to honor Louis Arnold – and that name stuck for the community. Sue Kroupa’s father was Ferd Lang, Jr., an undertaker and woodworker who became the first mayor when the Arnold incorporated as a city in 1972.

The grandfather of Sue Kroupa’s husband was Clement Vogel. The Vogel family, along with the Kroupa, Lang and Ziegler families, were instrumental in establishing new businesses and municipal developments such as public highways and the Rock Community Fire Protection District.”

Allen Flamm observes, “Many locals call Arnold a ‘Small Big Town.’ We evolved from agricultural, mechanical, and industrial eras to today’s modern age. Settler families endured Indian attacks, droughts, floods, the Great Depression and more. We are stubborn and determined. Families that came here in the 1800s such as the Vogels, Kroupas, Zieglers, Langs, and many others intertwined or intermarried so that, today, everybody knows about everybody else. you have got to be careful what you say about someone because it will travel like wildfire!”

Indeed, what would Thomas Jefferson say?

The heyday of railroads were great times for Arnold.

Imagine strolling from the Cedar Crest Country Club by the Meramec River to nearby Tenbrook Station in 1904 to board a comfortable railroad car for a short trip to St. Louis to see the St. Louis World’s Fair. Or compare a bumpy ride in a horse-drawn wagon loaded with your apple crop to shipping your fruit on a fast-moving train to profitable markets in Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Indeed. Until the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad opened in 1868, the Arnold area was comprised of fields, forests, farms, small houses, a ferry across the Meramec River, two churches, several blacksmiths, and a few businesses. By the early 1900s, thanks to railroads, old bridle trails were becoming roadways for cars and trucks while new grocery stores, saloons, machine shops, morticians, and the Cedar Crest Country Club were doing business.

The Frisco

The St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, popularly known as the Frisco, was incorporated in Missouri on September 7, 1876. It was formed by merging the Missouri Division and Central Division of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, according to Frisco Railroad archives. The Frisco built Tenbrook Station and its sidetracks here in 1902 and named it after local landowner John Tenbrook donated 4 acres for the project. The Frisco employed local workmen to maintain the tracks and, also, to support pump cars that stopped nightly to fill the water tower beside the track. The Frisco owned and rented track rights for running their trains to many communities in Missouri and southern states. (The practice of renting track rights was common then and still is today.)

“A place called ‘Mrs. Schnurbusch’s Boarding House’ was built near Tenbrook Station,” recalls historian Bernie Wilde. “The men would stay at Mrs. Schnurbusch’s where they got home-cooked meals for 25 cents. Before long, a telegraph line was installed at the depot, the Stadlmann Hotel was built, and a branch of the post office opened at the hotel,” she says. “Tenbrook Station was a depot and water station for many different railroads that ran through here. Its lounge became a small bar that was quite popular. On hot afternoons, kids would climb up the water tower to dive into the water to cool off or bathe until getting chased off by depot employees,” Wilde adds.

Local resident Dale Kramlich recalled, “The Cedar Crest Country Club on lower Tenbrook was owned by the Anheuser Busch family. It was used as a retreat for brewery employees. My great aunt and uncle, Charles and Mirie Kramlich, were the caretakers of the property in the mid-1930s.”

Bernie Wilde says, “The country club was near Tenbrook Station at Fannie Road. It was originally a home constructed in 1891 that was enlarged; it operated as the Cedar Crest Country Club until World War Two. The grounds hosted many picnics, ball games, and other recreations. It was near the Meramec River where people would go to relax.”

“There was an icehouse on the grounds with 3-foot walls for insulation,” Wilde says. “Ice cut from the Meramec River in winter was stored there for the summer supply. Antique firetrucks were also stored here. And you could walk to Tenbrook Station.”

Like many railroads in those early days, the Frisco went bankrupt and reorganized several times, including bankruptcy in 1893 and reorganization in 1896 and 1916. The tracks leading from St. Louis to Memphis and other destinations enabled trains to fill water for steam locomotives at Tenbrook Station, load or unload passengers, and load or unload freight.

Raccoon Logo

The Frisco’s famous logo is based on a stretched-out Missouri Ozarks raccoon hide. This is confirmed in Frisco Railroad archives at the Springfield-Greene County Library District and in other railroad histories. For decades, the insignia appeared in Frisco ads, brochures, annual reports, signs, and letterhead, yet the origin was never revealed until this report was given at a Frisco centennial dinner in 1960 by a long-time employee:

“A company vice president named G.H. Nettleton, on an inspection tour of Frisco lines, stopped for water in Neosho, Missouri. There he saw an outstretched raccoon hide tacked to the depot’s wall for tanning. He angrily demanded to see the station master. The station master nervously told Mr. Nettleton that the Frisco did not pay enough for him to support his family, so he had to hunt raccoons and sell the hides to help feed his wife and children. Mr. Nettleton burst into laughter and asked the station master what a hide cost. “Two dollars” came the answer. Still laughing, Mr. Nettleton produced two dollars and took that raccoon hide to Frisco’s home office in St. Louis. Soon, a design firm used the hide as inspiration for a new Frisco emblem.”

Zinzin, a brand design firm in Berkeley, California, shows the raccoon emblem on its website.

Trivia: The city of Frisco, Texas, was named for the Frisco Railroad and uses the logo as its own. It is also used by Frisco High School’s mascot, “The Fighting Raccoon.”

Fifteen different Frisco trains roared past Arnold to dozens of communities in Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas before mergers with other railroads began in the late 19th century. Oddly, the railroad line never made it to San Francisco. For some years, the Frisco was owned by tycoon Jay Gould, who owned interests in a dozen other U.S. railroads. Gould drowned on December 2, 1892, as a first-class passenger on the sinking Titanic.

The Frisco Railroad operated for 104 years – 1876 to 1980. It is not to be confused with the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, better known as the Katy, founded in 1865. Nor should it be confused with the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad, a target for the notorious Jesse James.

The Katy

The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway, with headquarters in Dallas, was established in 1865 as the Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch. It served an extensive rail network in Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. In the 1890s the MKT was called “the K-T” because it was the Kansas-Texas division of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. “KT” was its timetable abbreviation and also its stock exchange symbol. So, it became “The Katy.”

“The Sedalia Katy Depot” journal, published by the Sedalia, Missouri, Visitor Center, reports that at the time of the Katy’s incorporation, “consolidations were also made with the Labette & Sedalia Railway Co. and the Neosho Valley & Holden Railway Co.; MK&T also acquired the Tebo & Neosho Railroad Co., the St. Louis & Santa Fe Railroad Co., and the Hannibal & Central Missouri Railroad Co. With the Union Pacific Southern Branch, these small railroads formed the Katy’s foundation.” Like other railroads, the Katy began running into trouble. “By the 1890s, train robberies were big business in the West. At one point, trains were being robbed on an average of every four days,” reports the October 6, 2018, issue of True West Magazine, based in Cave Creek, Arizona. Here is an edited excerpt from that issue:

“From its origins the Katy had been targeted by the criminal element. Its many runs through rural and sparsely populated areas made it an easy prey. The infamous Dalton Gang, comprised of the brothers Frank, Bob, Grat, and Emmett Dalton, worked as lawmen in Kansas and Oklahoma before turning to crime in the early 1890s. They focused on banks and trains in Kansas and Oklahoma. The Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad was a frequent target until the Daltons were gunned down in October 1892.”

James Gang

Jesse and Frank James of Kearney, Missouri, were the nation’s most dangerous train robbers. They were smart thugs and brutal killers. The James Gang robbed banks from Iowa to Alabama, Minnesota, Missouri, and Texas, and then began holding up trains in 1873. In 1881 Missouri Gov. Thomas T. Crittenden offered a $10,000 reward for their capture, dead or alive.

The gang targeted the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad because it was known to carry wealthy passengers. The crime would become known as the “Great Missouri Train Robbery.”

On January 31, 1874, brothers Jesse and Frank James, and brothers Cole Younger, Jim Younger, and John Younger, robbed the general store in rural Gads Hill, 80 miles south of the Arnold area. The St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railroad train was expected to arrive at 4:00 pm that day. As it neared, the gang lit a bonfire on the tracks and waved a red flag to make the engineer stop the train immediately. The gang was reportedly dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan. Climbing aboard the train waving their guns, the gang began stealing passengers’ valuables, supposedly robbing only wealthy men, but not women. After cracking the safe and bagging the money, all five men escaped unhurt with a stolen total of $12,000, an amount worth at least $228,000 today. After Jesse was shot dead by a member of his own gang in April 1882, the outlaw crew broke up. The James Gang and other train robbers – such as the “Wild Bunch” and Butch Cassidy’s “Hole in the Wall Gang” – fueled growth for train detectives. The Independent State Road Guards and the Georgia Railroad Guards, like the famed Pinkerton Agency, worked for major railroads.

Beer Train

Hot weather jinxed breweries in the late 1800s. The problem was transporting beer in summer. The St. Louis Refrigerator Car Company, owned by Anheuser-Busch, was one of the first companies to design a railroad car to transport draught beer, notes the St. Louis Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.

“Although it incorporates a steel frame, it is wood-bodied and insulated with horsehair, shredded paper, and wood shavings. Pre-cooled beer was loaded into the car, whose insulation kept the A-B products cool in warm weather and from freezing in winter.

“Car Number 3600 is one of the oldest surviving examples of ‘billboard’ advertising on railroad freight cars. It was donated to The National Museum of Transportation in April 1958. Records indicate Number 3600 transported 6,277,500 gallons of beer between the St. Louis brewery and Texas distribution points before it was removed from service.”

The National Museum of Transportation is a private, 42-acre transportation museum and resource in St. Louis’ Kirkwood suburb that is open to the public with unique displays of historic locomotives and other vehicles.

The St. Louis Iron Mountain & Southern Railway today is a short line railway in Jackson, Missouri, that hosts themed trips such as the Halloween Express, Murder Mysteries Dinner, Christmastime, a Ghost Train, and a realistic reenactment of the James Gang robbery.

Article by Jeff Dunlap for the City of Arnold.
In addition to interviews, some information was excerpted from specialty journals and websites as noted,
and educational resources as noted, and from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

“A people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

Marcus Garvey – entrepreneur, journalist, and orator

Our community has grown up with important historical artifacts since its origin in 1776 as a trading post between St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve that was commissioned by Spanish King Charles III. Nearly 200 years later in 1972 the city of Arnold was incorporated.

The city’s settlers, progress and prosperity have been frozen in time by the Arnold Historical Society and Museum, a not-for-profit entity founded in 2005 by volunteers. Some of those dedicated helpers still collect historic artifacts today for safekeeping by the Museum located at 1723 Jeffco Boulevard.

Many of those artifacts are valuable. They include an 1873 Bible brought across the Atlantic Ocean by a German settler named Max Stengele; a cast iron sewing machine from the 1890s in its original wooden case; a 1906 Victrola that still plays recordings from the era through a listening horn; and many more antique items.

Bernie Wilde, a Society co-founder and current Treasurer, observes, “Artifacts like these helps keep historic Arnold alive with treasured memories by sharing pieces of history with children, senior citizens, educators and researchers, and by showcasing how people lived long ago.”

Society & Museum Origins

The Museum’s websiteis a cornucopia of key local history, including this description of the group’s beginnings:

“On June 17, 2005, a group of 30 interested citizens met in the Arnold Library to organize the Arnold, Missouri, Historical Society. Jack Underwood agreed to serve as President for one year. He signed the Charter as did Jim West and Bonita Owen. Allen Flamm was elected Vice President, Bonita Owen, Secretary, and Bernie Wilde was elected Treasurer. By August 2005, a Constitution and Bylaws were adopted.

“Jack discussed the need for a museum with Arnold City Officials. The City offered free use of a small trailer in Ferd Lang Park at 1838 Old Lemay Ferry Road. Jack worked tirelessly to get 501(c)3 tax exempt status. Several members donated money to begin the setup with necessary items. Artifacts came primarily from local people who had saved treasures from the past.”

Bernie Wilde and her husband Roy, who is retired from Ameren Electric Co. and served for 37 years on the City’s Planning & Zoning Commission, have been involved with the group in various roles since its origin.

“In the early days Roy and I would go out almost every weekend to search for artifacts and contact every older person we could think of to ask if they had antiques, or photographs, or historic items they didn’t need any more to help build the museum’s inventory,” she says. “We also contacted businesses for commercial artifacts.

“Many women gave us, or loaned us, collections of beautiful antique dishes, and men often gave us antique farm implements – Arnold started, you know, as quite a large farming community.

“We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and we receive no funding from the city, the county, or the state. Donations are tax-deductible. Our current membership is about 75 people.

“We have received a wide variety of different donations – for example, an antique bed with corn shucks as mattress stuffing, a World War Two bayonet, an ancient tomahawk, and dozens of arrowheads from local native American Indian tribes,” says Wilde. She adds, “Roy’s family owned a farm and every time they plowed the fields Indian arrowheads would turn up.”

Indeed, before the Federal Government’s Indian Removal Act (1830) which relocated many native tribes to outside Missouri, there were eight known Native American tribes living in Missouri, including:

• Chickasaw
• Illini
• Ioway
• Otoe-Missouria
• Osage
• Quapaw
• Sac & Fox
• Shawnee

The oldest trailway in Missouri was often used by Missouri’s Native American tribes in the late 1700s. It was called “El Camino Real” by the Spanish or “Rue Royale” by the French, both meaning “ Royal Road” or “The Kings Highway.” The trail ran from New Madrid and Sainte Genevieve over the region that become Arnold, and then to St. Louis. The trailway road and a ferry across the Meramec River were built by a French entrepreneur named Jean Baptiste Gamache, who was commissioned by Spanish King Charles III and paid handsomely. Gamache is believed to have been this region’s first settler.

Covid-19 Impact

Due to Covid-19, Society board members early last year elected to close the Museum and cancel or postpone many events and fundraising activities until the pandemic was no longer a threat. Until then, the Society and Museum participated in 15 or more fundraising events per year. Many local nonprofit groups have experienced financial pain due to the pandemic and, like those organizations, the Society’s operating budget has been severely impacted.

Wilde admits, “Many original members of the Society still volunteer to help sustain the Museum’s mission, and we occasionally get some assistance from a few Girl Scouts and citizens, but that doesn’t mean we’re not dealing with new challenges these days.” She adds. “Some of our long-time members passed away since Covid began. Our efforts to recruit new members has slowed down quite a bit.”

Allen Flamm until recently served as Society Secretary and, also, Vice-Chairman of the City’s Historic Preservation Commission. His ancestors settled in the Arnold area in 1836 and began planting apple orchards. Well known in the area, Flamm has been a Society volunteer since 2005. He cannot deny that the Society is now experiencing its share of tough times.

“I got involved with the Society because my family were pioneers here and I believe it is extremely important to preserve and promote the history of our entire community. I believe that understanding the past is essential for helping to build a meaningful future. In my opinion, any type of history is important when it sheds light on who we are, where we came from and where we might be going,” Flamm asserts. Wilde adds, “Right now we are working to increase donations to help pay monthly bills, and we are looking for new ways to attract younger members.”

Museum Reopening on Saturday, May 1, 2021

The good news is that the Society Museum will reopen on Saturday, May 1 to celebrate the birthday of Louisa Frederici Cody and the grand reopening of the Museum after being closed since last year. Relatives and friends will gather at the Museum at 1 pm to display a banner celebrating Arnold native Louisa Frederici (1844–1921), who married William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody on March 6, 1866, on her family’s farm in Arnold.

The couple met when Cody served at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis as a U.S. Army private during the Civil War, years before he gained fame as a buffalo hunter, frontier scout and Wild West showman. Cody often referred to his wife Louisa as “Lulu.” The couple sustained a rocky romantic relationship for 51 years until Bill Cody’s death in 1917. Louisa died in 1921 and is buried next to her husband on Colorado’s Lookout Mountain.

Admission to attend the birthday celebration and grand reopening of the Museum is $5.00; masks and social distancing are requested. Call 636-282-2828. After May 1, new Museum hours will be Friday and Saturday, 12-4 pm. For special appointments, call 636-464-9256. During May there will be a display of all items collected by a Buffalo Bill Cody look-alike, Bob Flamm.

At the museum, many historic documents and books feature contributions by Arnold men and women who played major roles in the area’s early progress and expansion. The hardbound book “Historic Arnold,” features many interesting essays and photos donated by dozens of residents published in a handsome volume covering 1876 thru 1986.

It is available with other books including a new, 220-page edition of the history of Richardson Cemetery that dates to 1867; a history of St. John’s Lutheran Church dating to 1848; and a history of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church dating to 1840. All books sell for about $20 each; a portion of the price supports the Museum. A 50-year anniversary book about Arnold is reportedly in the works.

Mayor Ron Counts observes, “The Arnold Historical Society and Museum is a valuable cultural asset. It celebrates Arnold’s hard-working pioneer spirit by showcasing artifacts and lifestyles of settlers who built our community and whom we respect with enduring pride. It should be enjoyed by everyone.”

For more information, visit Arnold Historical Society and their Facebook page.

Story by Jeff Dunlap for the City of Arnold

Since March is “National Reading Month,” it seems appropriate to honor Lang, who spent much of her adult life as an author and library volunteer in Arnold, High Ridge, and other local communities.

Except for small book collections at churches and private homes, there were no public libraries in Jefferson County until Lang and her friends created an all-volunteer library in donated space. They really wanted a tax-supported public library to serve all of Jefferson County, but getting one like that would take years of effort.

“I knew Della very well; she was the backbone of Jefferson County’s volunteer library organization,” says her friend Betty Ingram, a retired middle school English teacher. “Della worked very hard to write and sell her own books to raise money to help the volunteer effort,” says Ingram, who also volunteered for the cause. “She was really motivated; you might say she worked harder than anyone,” Ingram adds.

Busy Author

Books that Lang researched, wrote, published, and sold to raise money for the volunteer library include:

• Along Old Gravois
• Country Schools, Jefferson County, Missouri 1806-1952
• The Best of Reflections: Pioneer Families of Northwest Jefferson County
• The Legend of House Springs
• River City: The Story of Fenton, Missouri
• On the Road to History (a sequel to Along Old Gravois)

To write her books, Lang interviewed hundreds of county residents and wrote dozens of articles for Reflections, her self-published magazine. Her husband, Bill, working with a publisher, helped with printing.

In May 1978, Lang became founding member of a dedicated group of twelve women, including Ingram, who established the Community Library Association to provide library services to much of Jefferson County. Two months later in July 1978, the area’s first informal public library opened in a building on High Ridge Boulevard. Ingram later told a reporter for the Jefferson County Leader, “By September, there were so many donated materials that the library had to move to larger quarters.”

Library Launch

Three years later, on November 23, 1981, the Jefferson County Library District was formally established by the Jefferson County Commission when three County judges appointed five citizens to the inaugural Jefferson County Library Board of Trustees.

That first Board included Della Lang of High Ridge, Ralph Sippel of Arnold, Martha Dodson of Crystal City, Robert Miller of Hillsboro, and Elizabeth Mueller of De Soto. The library did not begin operations until 1989, however, when voters in the Northwest and Fox-Windsor library sub-districts approved a twenty-cent tax levy to support library services in those sub-districts.

The Association was sustained by additional volunteers, donations, fundraisers, sales of Lang’s books, and a small annual membership fee for users. It operated for 12 years – from 1978 to 1990. In that time the Association raised $169,316 in cash for expenses, volunteered 101,294 hours, and circulated 237,293 books.

“ ‘Friends of the Library’ volunteers maintained a space where we stacked new and used book donations to sell at low prices,” Ingram says. “At one point we had a space for storage that caught fire, but luckily we got everything out and moved before it was damaged,” she recalls.

Lang’s dedication was instrumental in establishing tax-supported library services in Jefferson County; she participated in tax levy campaigns in 1981, 1982, 1988, and in the 1989 campaign that successfully established a twenty-cent tax levy to support library services in the Northwest and Fox-Windsor sub-districts of the Jefferson County Library District.

In 1991, a sub-library opened in the basem*nt at Arnold City Hall. In May 2005, the first official Arnold Branch formally opened at 1701 Missouri State Road next to the Arnold Recreation Center and Arnold campus of Jefferson College.

After more than 15 years of organizational groundwork, Lang and her volunteer team achieved their dream of establishing a high-quality public library serving all of Jefferson County. Lang continued to volunteer in Jefferson County schools to help kids and adults enjoy books before she died in 2017 at age 84.

A loving wife to her husband, Bill Lang, and mother of their three children – Tony, Tina and Terry, Della was a busy member of the Northwest Friends of the Library, and also the Jefferson County Genealogical Society. She was, in addition, a Charter Member and Past President of the Fenton Historical Society.

Library Legend

With a smile, Ginger Brickey, associate at the Northwest Library Branch, says, “Della Lang’s photo hangs on the wall near my desk. It is almost like the boss is still around. Della was a VIP around here who set high-quality standards. She was instrumental in not only creating the library itself, but also in developing its history department and the genealogy department.”

Today the Della Lang Local History and Genealogy Rooms at the Northwest Library Branch, named in Della’s honor, welcome local and global genealogy researchers. Free genealogy classes and access to genealogical databases and collected reference materials are available there for new and experienced researchers.

Betty Ingram says, “I never thought we’d get the tax issue passed and never thought we’d have such beautiful library buildings. I almost get tears in my eyes when I walk into those buildings. I feel proud of what we accomplished by working hard as volunteers. We owe a lot to Della for her inspiration, her motivation, and her hard work. I will never forget her.”

Remember that March is “National Reading Month.” Visit your local Jefferson County Library. Some of Della Lang’s books are available for review, and others are available for supervised research.

Photos courtesy of Jefferson County Library District

Written for the City of Arnold by Jeff Dunlap