Two faiths and a river

Rock and river

Caves, bottoms, and Tower Rock

Perry County fills the wedge between Apple Creek and the Mississippi River, with the long Bois Brule bottom along the river and rolling farm country inland. Underneath it is honeycombed: about 650 known caves, more than any other county in Missouri. Out in the river off Wittenberg stands Tower Rock, a 60-foot rock island and a designated national landmark.

Two faiths shaped the county. Catholic settlers made Perryville, the county seat, home to St. Mary’s of the Barrens, whose roots go back to the first college west of the Mississippi; and in 1838–39 hundreds of Lutheran emigrants from Saxony settled the southeastern corner, where their villages, churches, and log college still stand.

Founding and early years

From Ste. Genevieve County to Perryville

Perry County was organized on November 16, 1820, and named forCommodore Oliver Hazard Perry, a naval hero of the War of 1812. Perryville became its seat and grew up around St. Mary’s of the Barrens.

The Saxon immigration

The Saxons come to Perry County

In 1838–39 more than 600 Lutherans from Saxony, in eastern Germany, followed Pastor Martin Stephan across the ocean and up the Mississippi, looking for a place to practice their faith as they chose. They bought land in the southeastern corner of Perry County and founded a string of villages named for home: Altenburg, Wittenberg, Frohna, Dresden, Friedheim, and Paitzdorf, which was renamed Uniontown during the Civil War.

In 1839 they built a log cabin college in Altenburg; the school started there grew into Concordia Seminary. The settlers’ German dialect has lasted remarkably long: in 2014 about 250 people in the county still spoke it.

Since then

A courthouse, a shrine, and a wall

Perryville built its courthouse in 1904, with a chiming clock tower that still anchors the square, and grew into the county’s market town. On the grounds of St. Mary’s of the Barrens, the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal draws pilgrims and visitors to its church and mile-long Rosary Walk.

North of town, Missouri’s National Veterans Memorial built the only full-size black granite replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall outside Washington, D.C. Each May, Perryville’s Mayfest fills downtown, as it has for more than 40 years.