Historic Kimmswick

Our next door neighbours, Jerry & Sandy, kindly invited us out for the day. They took us to Kimmswick which is a small town (like a UK village) about 20 miles south of St Louis & about a 25 minute drive from where we live.

As you arrive in Kimmswick, it is like being transported back in time. Most of the buildings we looked at were dated in the mid 1800's. The town was founded in 1859 when a German dry goods merchant, Theodore Kimms, purchased about 160 acres of land from the widow of Captain George Waters. Kimms laid out the small town and named it after himself. The early German community was settled by wealthy families from St. Louis and immigrant stonecutters.

The town is right on the river & also has a railroad running through it & so prospered early on due to the easy transport access. Originally, there were about 1,500 people living in Kimmswick & it had a post office, 4 schools, 2 train stations, a dentist & several doctors. It also had a bank, hotel, flouring mill, iron works foundry, lumber mill & brewery (which seems quite a lot for a village). Many of the people living in Kimmswick were stonemasons & they cut the limestone used to construct the Old Courthouse in St Louis from the quarries surrounding the town. There was also at one time 14 mineral springs in the vicinity which were the source of salt used by the early American Indians.

In the early 20th Century, the town was bypassed & almost forgotten about. Many of the historic buildings fell into decay & were torn down. The vast reduction in boat & train traffic, & the building of nearby Highway 55 almost killed off the town, but the Kimmswick Historical Society managed to save some of the settlement & continues the effort of restoring Kimmswick.

One of the more famous Kimmswick attractions is the 'The Blue Owl Restaurant & Bakery'. We had a really nice meal there & they have a large range of desserts including apple pie that was about a foot thick!