Loose Creek
| Loose Creek | |||
|---|---|---|---|
Location in Missouri
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| Basic data | |||
| Foundation : | 1841 | ||
| State : | United States | ||
| State : | Missouri | ||
| County : | Osage County | ||
| Coordinates : | 38 ° 30 ′ N , 91 ° 57 ′ W | ||
| Time zone : | Central ( UTC − 6 / −5 ) | ||
| Residents : | 200 (as of:) | ||
| Height : | 251 m | ||
| FIPS : | 29-44048 | ||
| GNIS ID : | 729333 | ||
Loose Creek is a settlement on community-free area (Unincorporated Community) in Osage County in the US -amerikanischen State Missouri . Loose Creek is 8 miles east of the capital, Jefferson City, on US Highway 50 . The population of the place is predominantly Catholic.
history
Settlement by German emigrants
Between 1835 and 1855 more than 700 people from the Rhineland , 350 of them from the area of today's Meerbusch , emigrated to the Missouri region. In the middle of the 19th century, the economic conditions in their ancestral home were not good. Agriculture fed the small farmers and day laborers more poorly than well. There was no land and no other occupation for the children who were born later. Bad harvests, price increases, epidemics and floods often made the situation worse. Therefore, many residents decided to emigrate to America, which appeared to many as the promised land. Several groups reached Missouri in 1833, 1840, 1841, 1850, 1854, and 1865.
The German emigrant Theodore Lock (Bösinghoven) founded a mill with his family in 1841, which burned down in 1972 and was replaced by a newer and more modern building. In 1851, many people from the Krefeld region settled here . The start was not easy, people often lived in primitive log houses . The forest had to be cleared, there were hardly any roads and paths. Two cholera epidemics claimed many victims around 1852. Not all of them endured it and wandered back again. The name Loose Creek comes from French settlers who were there before the Lankers .
Contacts to the German home of the ancestors
In 1985 contacts were rebuilt. Via detours, a letter reached the home district of Lank in which a descendant sought contact with local historians in Lank and the surrounding area via the Westphalian Society for Genealogy in Münster.
Loose Creek was first visited by members of the Lank home county in 1988. The families showed great interest and in addition to a garden party to get to know each other, many old documents and family chronicles were presented. The communication with the 4th generation of emigrants took place in Länkter Platt . The vocabulary contains some vocabulary that are hardly used in Germany, while other terms, which have probably only found their way into our plateau recently, are not understood in the USA.
In 1990 "Missouri Square" was inaugurated in Lank-Latum. In 1992 the citizens of Loose Creek erected their great immigration monument. The partnership between Lank-Latum and Loose Creek was officially established in the presence of the German visitors. In 1994 the return visit was made by 49 guests from Missouri. Since then, mutual visits have taken place in a regular two-year cycle: 2016 was the 7th trip of the Meerbuscher to Missouri, in 2018 the Americans were in the land of their ancestors for the 7th time.
In 1999 the sculpture Windung was inaugurated. It is intended to be a monument to the bond between the two communities and to represent the desire for a new future for the people from the old world.
economy
There are cow, pig, turkey and bird farms in the vicinity of the rural town.
Web links
- 1996 German Heritage Day in Loose Creek, Missouri. September 9, 2014
- Germans in America 1 - To the promised land. YouTube
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Franz-Josef Radmacher: Lank-Latumer Platt am Missouri . In: Heimatkreis Lank (Ed.): Dä Bott . 1989, p. 286-291 .
- ^ Editor Heimatkreis Lank: A letter from America .... In: Heimatkreis Lank (Ed.): Dä Bott . 1985, p. 46 .
- ^ Franz-Josef Radmacher: The Missouriplatz connects . In: Heimatkreis Lank (Ed.): Dä Bott . 1990, p. 85-86 .
- ^ Editor Heimatkreis Lank: Immigration Celebration . In: Heimatkreis Lank (Ed.): Dä Bott . 1992, p. 219-222 .
- ^ Partnership with Loose Creek in Missouri USA . heimatkreis-lank.de. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
- ↑ Franz-Josef Radmacher: Inauguration "Transatlantik Brücke" . In: Heimatkreis Lank (Ed.): Dä Bott . tape 1999 , p. 455 .