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Wentzville In the late 18th
Century, French traders arrived in the area and in 1796 Jean Baptiste
Blondeau began cultivating land along Dardenne Creek. The first permanent
settler was Joseph Trendly who arrived in 1823. A small settlement of most
French inhabitants arose in what is now old-town St. Peters taking its name
from the first log church established in 1815, called St. Peters, on
Dardenne Creek. During the 1830s to the 1850s German Catholics, escaping the
political turmoil in Germany, began arriving in the region. Although the area
developed into a prosperous farming community St. Peters hadn’t been
platted. When the North Missouri Railroad came through in the 1850’s Henry
Reinke and H. Deppe laid out St. Peters. In 1875 the Hannibal and St. Louis
Railroad was making slow progress through the floodplain of St. Charles
County and the K Line was built connecting it to the North Missouri at St.
Peters. As St. Peters was now the junction of these two railroads, the town
became an important railroad center. By the end of the 19th
Century, St. Peters boasted two railroad depots and a flourishing main
street of shops, hotels and saloons. The original log church was replaced
several times until its congregation built the gothic All Saints Church that
sits on a hill overlooking the community. St. Peters formally incorporated
in 1910 as a village. Over the next two decades automobiles and trucks
replaced horses and railroads. |
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