FEATURE Review
City of Wildwood:
A Perfect Place to Live and Learn
Ossenfort Road, Wildwood, Missouri. Photo credit: Jenny Shaw.
Wildwood, Missouri, boasts a mix of the beauty of lush green space, expansive residential lots and a thriving business district. Just a short 30-minute drive from the largest city in Missouri, Wildwood has the feel of a rural escape with the convenience of being located in the footprint of the Saint Louis Metropolitan Area. Wildwood was incorporated on Sept. 1, 1995, but its history extends long before its official incorporation. Since the mid1800s when stagecoach was the main source of transport, the surrounding communities that now make up Wildwood proper were home to farmers, early settlers and families who prospered off the rich land, orchards and grist mills that once 6
theReview November/December 2021
dotted the landscape. With the advent of the railroad, whose tracks are still present today, Wildwood became a weekend day trip for Saint Louis City dwellers to escape the hustle and bustle for the tranquility of the countryside. While today the city of Wildwood is one community, it was once made up of many settlements including Centaur, Fox Creek, Glencoe, Grover, Hollow, Kelpe, Melrose, Monarch, Orrville, Pond and Westland Acres. These settlements are still discoverable today and now have markers providing a brief history for adventurers seeking to know and enjoy the past. Beyond these unique settlements, the Historic Route 66, Manchester Road thoroughfare travels east-west through
