City Of Arnold: Diamond In The

by Jeffrey Dunlap

City Of Arnold:

Diamond In The Rough Celebrating 50 Years

The city of Arnold, the largest city in Jefferson County, is celebrating its Semicentennial this year. Arnold’s pioneer heritage dates to 1774 when German immigrant John Hildebrand built a fort called the Meramec Settlement. In 1776, a French surveyor, Jean Baptiste Gamache, built a ferry across the Meramec River for a land grant from Spain’s King Charles III. The ferry operated where Telegraph Road crosses the Meramec today at Arnold’s Flamm Park.

Ron Counts, Arnold’s mayor since 2009, explains why the City incorporated, and praises its progress.

“Post-war population growth in the 1960s burdened public services,” he said. “Subdivisions were opening, schools expanding. People wanted good water, better sewers, a bigger fire department and a police department to reduce pressure on Jefferson County sheriffs.”

In 1970, petitioners gained enough signatures to require the Jefferson County Court to call an election for a proposal to incorporate. When six local villages merged – Beck, Flamm City, Maxville, Old Town Arnold, Ten Brook and Wickes – Arnold incorporated in 1972.

“With incorporation, Arnold became better positioned to improve community services, attract new businesses, jobs, cultural and recreational amenities,” said Mayor Counts. It more easily qualified to apply for federal and state grants to fund new programs and improvements.

Who Named Arnold?

In 1925, a businessman named Ferd Lang, Sr. built a general store, tavern and gas station on land he purchased from a farmer named Louis Arnold. Lang was so pleased that he called his land Arnold. A few years later, locals officially validated Lang’s name of choice. When Arnold incorporated as a City in 1972, Lang’s son, Ferd B. Lang, Jr. became the City’s first mayor.

Arnold’s population today of about 22,000 originated mostly from French, German, English, Irish, Scots, and Swiss immigrants who arrived after Jefferson Barracks opened in 1826. The garrison’s role was to vanquish fierce Native Americans inhabiting what French trappers called “The Missouri Territory.” The Algonquian term Missouri means “people with canoes made from logs.”

French families who settled St. Louis obtained about 6,000 acres of land in the rural area, selling parcels to immigrants who wanted farms. In 1833 two men in Germany formed the Giessen Emigration Society to live in colonial America. In 1834, more than 500 Germans emigrated to the area because it portrayed Germany’s Rhineland region.

Allen Flamm of the Arnold Historical Society is vice-chairman of the City’s Historic Preservation Commission. He characterizes Arnold’s evolution from rugged frontier to modern City this way: “In 1836, my great grandfather

Wilhelm Flamm arrived from

Merseburg, Germany, to farm and plant orchards. He married a

French girl related to Jean Baptiste

Gamache, an early settler. By 1920, my grandfather John H. Flamm owned 320 acres that spread to the Meramec River. He planted more orchards growing apples, peaches, pears, plums, grapes and raspberries. My father Alvin Flamm was born in 1915. I remember my father and grandpa selling our products in south St. Louis. In 1937, a butcher named Leo

Ziegler opened a store nearby. He wanted people to find it, so he called

(l-r): City of Arnold swimming pool, recreation center and recreation center track. Photo Credit: © Hastings+Chivetta Architects, Inc. / Fentress Photography

the area ‘Flamm City’ because most people knew where Flamm orchards were.”

Flamm City was one of six hamlets that merged to incorporate the city of Arnold.

“Pioneering families including Vogels, Kroupas, Langs and Zieglers, among others, helped establish new business and municipal developments such as public highways and the Rock Community Fire Protection District soon after incorporation,” Flamm continued. “We evolved through agricultural, mechanical and industrial eras to today’s modern age. Settlers endured Indian attacks, droughts, floods, the Great Depression and more. We are stubborn and determined. Families that came here in the 1800s intertwined or intermarried so that, today, everybody knows just about everybody else.”

Diamond In The Rough

Residents call Arnold a “diamond in the rough.” Its frontier origins evolved into a hard-working city with amenities and improvements that respect the area’s past, present and future opportunities for progress. Its immigrants today often come from St. Louis and St. Louis County; Arnold is like a suburb.

“We are committed to being a municipality where people enjoy life, work, and play, and not forget that life is short, and we should enhance it if we can,” said Counts.

Enhancing the City also means attracting major companies to establish headquarters near Tenbrook Industrial Park in the City’s central corridor. Some include Arnold Defense & Electronics; Browning Arms Company; LMC Industries, Inc.; Medart, Inc.; Sinclair & Rush, Inc.; Unico, Inc.; Warren Sign Company; and Metal Container Corporation – the Anheuser BuschInBev subsidiary that is the nation’s largest can manufacturing plant. Arnold also is home to a regional center of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, that employs 1,000 workers.

“We want to keep good jobs in Arnold,” asserts Mayor Counts. “Every one of those companies employs highlyskilled, highly-trained people who work a good job at a big company. When we learn that an incentive is required to get good jobs, the City may offer incentives for a company to locate or stay here.”

When absolutely necessary, Arnold has utilized Missouri’s Chapter 100 bond program to offer development incentives. “We try to balance our involvement to keep good companies in Arnold, rather than somewhere else,” said Counts.

Bryan Richison is Arnold’s city administrator, a position he accepted in 2013. He states, “Arnold has made a lot of progress in recent years.”

In 2019, the City became Missouri’s first “Age-Friendly Community” designated by the AARP Network of AgeFriendly Communities for implementing an action plan of commitments based on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

That effort was nurtured by the City’s Commission on Aging and Disabilities. Its mission is to support programs for people who are disabled, elderly or

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Embracing Universal Design

Arnold Public Works Director Judy Wagner and Community Development Director David Bookless are managing efforts to remove or modify barriers at city facilities to enable fully convenient access.

In addition, Wagner and Bookless are developing an updated ADA compliance plan, plus a new bike-walkhiking trail grant proposal, aka Surface Transportation Program. They hope to receive funding in 2022.

“We are creating an environment very different than Arnold people may remember from years ago,” says Wagner. “Universal design concepts that we are embracing will accommodate more people with different needs.”

Bookless adds, “We work to make the best use of development money to serve the most people in a City that changed fast in recent years and continues to change.”

The City’s recreation renter, built in 2005 on 23 acres beside Jefferson County College and Jefferson County Library, is a progressive example. The megamodern range of athletic, fitness, leisure, swimming pools and activity rooms are as engaging as any rec center anywhere.

“It is great for children, teenagers, adults, families and seniors for socializing and exercise,” Richison observes.

In 2020, the City transformed its 18hole golf course into a lovely 140-acre park for biking, hiking and relaxing. Staff installed a device, called a Watergoat, that sucks up loose garbage from a creek to divert it from the Meramec River. Mayor Counts calls it “A wonderful benefit to protect our rivers.”

In 2016, Arnold was designated a Purple Heart City and a POW/MIA City by the Military Order of the Purple Heart and Jefferson Barracks POW/MIA Museum, respectively. Hundreds of Jefferson County and Arnold residents have been killed or wounded in wars. Gary Plunk, 4th ward city councilman, helped expedite those noble designations.

“Arnold may be changing, but never too fast to honor brave men and women who sacrificed to protect our nation’s freedom,” said Plunk

Richison admits that, in addition to progress, Arnold is confronting game-changing influences felt by most American cities. “Due to popularity of online retail shopping, cities are feeling the pinch of less sales tax income,” he said.

“Arnold collects sales taxes from several ‘big box’ stores in town and retailers at Arnold Commons (a shopping mall with 16 namebrand stores) and others,” said Richison. “Stores are near Interstate 55, and out-of-town shoppers can conveniently access them. Online shopping, we believe, is getting stronger. We do not believe more big box stores are the remedy. As a city of 12 square miles, we do not yet see a simple solution or a new normal on the horizon. We are strongly exploring potential options.

David Bookless adds, “We are working to determine if there is a market for more industrial development. A word on peoples’ lips is annexation. That word inspires many different reactions. It would be premature to pursue any course of action without serious evaluation of services and infrastructure costs of, for example, annexing open ground in Jefferson County.”

For now, the incorporated city of Arnold will celebrate its 50th anniversary with parties, carnivals, celebrity appearances, concerts, school activities and holiday parades with as much pride that a “Diamond in the Rough” can muster.

Mayor Counts declares, “2022 will be a great year of celebrating our City, an especially great time for people to visit. We look forward to making new friends.”

The city of Arnold was designated, in 2016, as a Purple Heart City and a POW/MIA City by the Military Order of the Purple Heart and Jefferson Barracks POW/MIA Museum.

Jeff Dunlap is a freelance reporter and writer. Learn more about the city of Arnold at https://www.arnoldmo.org.

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