Historic Centaur

James MacKay settled almost 4,000 acres at the mouth of Bonhomme Creek in 1797 in an area originally known as St. Andrews. Under Spanish control, he received land for transporting soldiers up the Missouri River to remove British troops, mapping the river, and encouraging settlers from Kentucky and Tennessee, mainly of Scottish and Irish descent. German immigrants came in the 1830s. Anton Leiweke founded the Centaur Lime Company in 1891, and the community became a center of commerce because of rich resources and transportation on the Missouri River and the Rock Island Railroad. Other settlers included Alexander McCourtney, William Bellew, William Coleman, Robert Coleman, John Coleman, Henry Tyler, Theodore St. Onge, Adam Kesselring, Johann Sandfoss, and Henry Kelpe. The area also knew tragedy on May 5, 1932, when a Rock Island freight train struck an automobile, killing Anton Leo Leiweke, Dolores Leiweke, Loretta Leiweke, and Joseph Leiweke Jr., and seriously injuring Joseph H.C. Leiweke as the family traveled from Centaur to Ascension Catholic Church in Chesterfield. Witnesses Reverend McCartney and Minnie Bellairs testified that they did not hear a train whistle and that trees and structures interfered with the train engineer's vision, and the accident profoundly affected the community because of the Leiweke family's significance in the area.

Wildwood, Missouri · United States