St. Charles County Historical Society

The St. Charles County Historical Society's quarterly publication, the St. Charles County Heritage: The Bulletin of the St. Charles County Historical Society, is a more than three-decades long treasure trove of articles and photographs related to county locations, individuals, events, and transitional periods, from pre-history to the near-present. Authors and local historians have long contributed these articles in the hopes of preserving and broadly disseminating invaluable information from our common past.

From time to time, the Society's Blog will present a newly selected article, each provided in its entirety, each previously published in the Heritage, and each chosen for its particular topic and/or county interest. Over time, it is our goal to highlight all of the articles, further expanding and honoring the original intent of our authors.

It is our hope that the Society's "St. Charles County Stories" Blog will broaden and deepen knowledge of our wonderful County, and its historical uniqueness.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

{Originally published in the St. Charles Heritage (Vol 5. No. 4.), October 1987}}

Crossroads History

by Ted Rauch

Our reprint article this month is From the St Charles Journal of September 1, 1974, where it appeared under the byline of Ted Rauch, the St. Charles County Historical Society Archivist.

If you read down a list of the names of our streets, it will be evident that they were not chosen by chance, but by design. They give a consecutive picture of historic eras of our city and country

Here first were the Indians, so we have Indian Hills, Osage, Arrowhead, Cherokee, Shawnee, Indian Trail. Later, Tecumseh, an Indian chief in the War of 1812, raided the American settlements in the Ohio Territory as an ally of the British. Somehow this seems an odd name choice.

Reminiscent of the Spanish period are ....... read more

Saturday, March 18, 2017

{Originally published in the St. Charles Heritage (Vol 5. No 3.), July 1987}

THE HIGHWAY BRIDGES - A 100-YEAR LIFELINE

by Louis J. Launer

The history of highway bridges in St. Charles County has been quite unique - as unique as the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers themselves. St. Charles county is the point where the Missouri and Missisippi Rivers meet - the two great rivers in North America. In the middle of the 19th Century, no one from St. Charles or anywhere in the area would ever dream that a highway bridge could be built across the Missouri or the mighty Mississippi.

The first bridge in St.Charles County that crossed the Missouri after the North Missouri Railroad bridge (l87l) ..... read more

Monday, March 13, 2017

{Originally published in the St. Charles Heritage (Vol 5. No 3.), July 1987}

FEMME OSAGE, THE VALLEY AND THE TOWN

by Robert C. Schultz

The story of Femme Osage is really two stories. One of them concerns Daniel Boone, early settlements and the lower river valley. The other is about the small German settlement, its people and its church near the source of the creek.