Where Missouri’s German settlement began
The beginning of German emigration to Missouri is the small village of Dutzow and located about 50 miles west of St. Louis along the Missouri River. In 1829, a German attorney named Gottfried Duden published a book about Missouri from 1824 until 1827, titled “A Report on A Journey to the Western States of North America.” This book caused many German immigrants to consider Missouri a land of opportunity. In the decade that followed, 120,000 Germans would immigrate to the United States, with one-third of them settling in Missouri due to Duden’s book.
