Who Named the City of Arnold?

The community was named for Louis Arnold, a landowner shown here in the 1920s, before the city was incorporated in 1972. Photo courtesy of the City’s book Historic Arnold.

In 1825 the Arnold area was sparsely populated and nameless. Major land owners, mostly French, began to sell tracts of their land to pioneers from Pennsylvania and eastern colonies. Settlers also arrived from England, France, and Ireland, but most new arrivals came from Germany.

A German journalist toured the area in the mid-1800s. When he returned home, he published an article calling the region a place from German folklore where “Pigs dance with knives and forks sticking out of their bodies.” That description of a land of plenty attracted boatloads of Germans wanting to leave their homeland behind.

In the book Historic Arnold, author James Waldrop said of the newcomers: “God would have to furnish a people who loved the land; a stubborn and determined folk who, in the face of adversity, would bend but not break. And, finally, those good people would need a keen sense of humor for, without the ability to laugh at themselves, they would surely have all perished.”

After the Civil War and opening of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railroad the area began to grow steadily. In 1875 it was a region of wild fields and forests, fruit trees, farms, small houses, a ferry across the Meramec River, two churches, several blacksmiths and a few businesses selling goods people needed.

By the early 1900s bridle paths became dirt roads to accommodate the area’s first trucks and automobiles.

In the mid-1920s an ambitious businessman named Ferd Lang, Sr. built a general store, tavern and gas station on a big parcel of land that Lang purchased from a man named Louis Arnold. Lang named that land Arnold to honor the man who sold it to him. Not much is known about Louis Arnold, but he must have been somebody important because that name for the growing area stuck.

Years later, Ferd B. Lang, Jr. would become the first mayor of Arnold when it was incorporated as a city in 1972. (At least one website claims that the region was named for George Arnold, the city’s first postmaster. That is not true. George Arnold was first postmaster of a post office in Ontario, Canada, not in Arnold, Missouri.)

Fast forward almost 100 years to 2017, when a man named Eldred Arnold celebrated his 100th birthday with family and friends on June 14. Eldred Arnold’s grandfather was Louis Arnold, the man who inspired Ferd Lang, Sr., to name the area Arnold. The party was especially joyous.

Photo of Eldred Arnold at his 100th birthday celebration by Ted Howell for the Jefferson County Leader.

The Arnold Leader newspaper noted, “Eldred Arnold, a descendant of one of the founders of the Arnold area, had one heck of a birthday celebration this month, when he turned 100. Not only did Eldred’s family and friends celebrate his milestone birthday, but so did officials with Jefferson County and the city of Arnold, which presented proclamations to honor him.”

Mayor Ron Counts led the city’s ceremonies with this historic proclamation:

“At the young age of four years, Eldred began helping his father George Arnold construct homes in the Arnold area, and, also, the Bank of Maxville.

“Eldred dug graves at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church at age 20 and was paid $8.00 a grave, but it took young Eldred all day to dig one grave with a pick and spade.

“As a soldier in the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division, Eldred leaped from a landing craft into the choppy waters off Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, as Nazi machine guns on high ground raked the beach with bullets. Eldred fought his way to Holland and Belgium with his comrades in the 1st Division and finally to Germany, where he was granted a long-overdue furlough.

“After World War Two, Eldred began working for the Western Railroad for 78 cents an hour. After 22 years he was earning $6.00 per hour and his work continued for another 10 years.

“Eldred is a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Imperial, Missouri, and is a valuable member of the Arnold community. Now therefore, I, Ron Counts, Mayor of the City of Arnold, Missouri, do hereby proclaim the day of June 14, 2017 ‘Eldred Arnold Day’ with all its inherent rights and privileges.”

Eldred was given an inscribed memorial plaque to mark the occasion and all the birthday cake he could eat. Some partygoers talked about Eldred’s lifelong community service. Others said he was a World War Two hero. Eldred Arnold passed away six months later on Sunday, December 10, 2017, mourned by his children and grandchildren. More facts about his grandfather Louis Arnold may never be known.

Article by Jeff Dunlap for the City of Arnold

Jean Baptiste Gamache – First Settler in Arnold

Jean Baptiste Gamache is one of thirty early pioneers honored by this monument, which was donated by the Gamache family and the St. Louis Archdiocese. The granite monument at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis identifies the earliest explorers and settlers in the region, and marks the final resting place of some of them.

The first European settler in Arnold was Jean Baptiste Gamache, born in 1734 in Quebec, Canada. He was a French-Canadian entrepreneur who operated a ferry across the Meramec River near about 900 acres of land granted to him by the King of Spain.

Jean Baptiste Gamache was one of 30 men in Pierre Laclede’s exploration party when Laclede founded St. Louis on Valentine’s Day in 1764. He was a land surveyor and adventurer who had met Laclede at Fort des Chartres in Prairie Du Rocher, Illinois, before joining Laclede’s party and crossing the Mississippi to Missouri.

When he left Laclede on St. Louis’ riverfront, Gamache moved to the Arnold/Carondelet area where he would eventually establish his ferry on the Meramec River. In 2002, the website Geneology.com published this article by Robert C. Haeffner telling how it happened:

“A convenient beginning date for the history of the Arnold area would be 1776, with the order of King Charles III of Spain to open a land route to stimulate commerce between the trading posts of St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve. As part of the route, the Lt. Governor of Louisiana, Francois Cruzat, offered 1050 arpents of land (about 893 acres) to anyone who would build and operate a ferry across the Meramec River.

“Jean Baptiste Gamache completed the project in 1776 and established what was known as the lower ferry at the site where today’s State Route 231 crosses the Meramec at Flamm Park.”

Gamache’s ferry was next to the King’s Trace, also known as El Camino Real (the Royal Road). It was an old Indian trail and bridle path that led south from St Louis, past Gamache’s ferry, to Kimmswick, Ste. Genevieve, and eventually to New Madrid. Called Rue Royale by the French, the King’s Trace was traveled by hunters, British, French and Spanish soldiers, and Native Americans from the mid-1700s well into the 1800s.

Most ferries of in the 1770s were flat-bottomed boats that operators poled, rowed, or sailed across the water, or they pulled a rope spanning the river and tied securely to tree trunks on both sides. Operating one of those ferries was tough work, particularly in flood season.

By building his ferry, Jean Baptiste Gamache enabled more travel and exploration in colonial Missouri. Little is known about Gamache’s life after he finished his land survey for the Spanish Dominion. In 1789, Native Americans and British troops threatened the Arnold area. Gamache then moved to the security of St. Louis for about two years.

This photo of the Flamm Park boat landing in Arnold as it appears today shows where Jean Baptiste Gamache operated his ferry across the Meramec River.

Upon his return to the Arnold area, Gamache operated his ferry, farmed his land, and raised a family on the property until he became old and his two sons – Jean Baptiste, Jr. and Auguste – took over the operations.

Jean Baptiste Gamache died at age 70 in 1805. It is said that Gamache’s 893-acre property granted to him by the King of Spain included what is known today as Jefferson Barracks.

Gerald Gamache, a college professor in St. Augustine, Florida, wrote a family history called Journeys: The Gamache Family in the New World. It recounts ten generations of the Gamache family from 1565 in France to the early 2000s in the United States.

In 2008, Gerald Gamache told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in an interview: “The U.S. government after the War of 1812 believed Washington, DC was not a good place for the nation’s capital. They thought the capital should be moved to Jefferson Barracks. Land speculators acquired land and sold it to the city of Carondolet for $5.”

The U.S. government never moved the capital, but Gamache said government officials had promised to return the land to his family when Jefferson Barracks was no longer useful to the military. That obviously never happened. As you know, the military maintains a national cemetery there.

Actors in a reenactment show how Missouri pioneers dressed in about 1780.

“Gamache descendants went to court three times trying to regain the land – in 1838, 1856, and for the last time in 1876.

“If the land grant is ever found, the government might have to compensate, but there would be Gamaches coming out of the woodwork laying claim,” said Gerald Gamache, who died in 2013.

Article by Jeff Dunlap for the City of Arnold