Arnsberg Cemetery Association Honors Past Inhabitants

The Arnsberg Cemetery Association held its 20th annual business meeting May 18 on the cemetery grounds. In addition to routine business matters, Association members expressed appreciation for two recent additions to the grounds – a lighted flag pole with US flag, and a sign commemorating the Native Americans who lived in the northern Cape Girardeau County area.

In its day, the “Old Indian Road” was a well-traveled east-west path takings its users to and from the Mississippi River. The Shawnee and Delaware tribes were the main inhabitants of northern Cape Girardeau County until the early 1800s, when the US Government simultaneously relocated the Native Americans farther west to Kansas and Oklahoma, and opened Missouri to settlement by US citizens from eastern states and immigrants from Europe. The road’s route traversed the northern edge of the cemetery grounds, along the present-day State Highway KK.

By 1856, several German immigrants had settled in northern Cape Girardeau County, and had begun building a community called Arnsberg. The community included a church, mill, general store, and a Grange hall. The community survived into the early 1900s; the cemetery and the nearby mill ponds are the main remnants of that community. The cemetery contains the graves of several immigrants and many of their descendants.

The flag pole offers the opportunity to fly the Stars and Stripes, honoring our country and its present inhabitants, as well as those who have gone before us.

The "old Indian road" passed within yards of the sign's location at the front of Arnsberg Cemetery along State Highway KK.

The Arnsberg Cemetery Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the memories of the Arnsberg Community and its immigrant inhabitants, as well as the memories of the earlier native inhabitants. The Association hosts cemetery maintenance days periodically. Association officers include Joyce Reed, President; Michael Reed, Vice President; Loretta Lowes, Secretary; Linda Tucker, Treasurer; Mary Daume and Sue Sewing, Historians; and Harlan Tuschhoff, Paul Lowes, Randy Georger, Rodney Tucker, and Diann Ulmer, Trustees. Donations to help defray cemetery maintenance costs may be made to the Arnsberg Cemetery Association and mailed to Linda Tucker, Association Treasurer, at 265 GTO Drive, Oak Ridge, MO 63769.