Ballwin, Missouri

Ballwin is a 4th-class city located in West St. Louis County, Missouri. With a population of 30,404 at the 2010 census, it is one of the major outer-ring suburbs in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

History

Ballwin was founded and named for John Ball (1779-1859), the son of an Irish immigrant who fought in a Virginia regiment during the Revolutionary War and afterwards moved to Kentucky, where he may have been an associate of Daniel Boone. John Ball moved from Kentucky to Missouri in the late 1790s, possibly accompanying Boone's migration party, and in February 1800 obtained from the Spanish colonial government a 400-acre land grant along Grande Glaize Creek. This estate remained rural and isolated until the shift of Missouri's capital to Jefferson City in 1826, after which work began on an overland mail route connecting St. Louis with the new seat of government. This route, the future Manchester Road (Missouri Route 100), passed by Ball's property, and Ball decided to lay out a new town to take advantage of the business opportunities it would provide. The new community was laid out and officially recorded as "Ballwin" in 1837 (though some early documents spelled it as "Baldwin").

The town grew steadily during the 19th century, benefiting from a surge of German immigration to the area, though for many years it remained a small, farming-oriented settlement. Despite the importance of Manchester Road, the fact that it was bypassed by the railroads meant it lacked the rapid growth of many other towns. Activity in Ballwin picked up with the layout of U.S. Route 66 through the town in 1926, bringing more long-distance travelers, and the process of suburbanization in west St. Louis County gathered pace after World War II. To manage the accelerating growth, Ballwin finally incorporated as a village in December 1950, at which time it had a population of around 850. During the next decade, its size increased to over 5,700 residents, and this growth continued in subsequent years with the widening of Manchester Road into a major thoroughfare and the addition of shopping centers and more service businesses. By 2000, Ballwin had attained a population of roughly 30,000; since then, it has been more or less stabilized.