Frohna, Missouri
Frohna is a city in southeastern Perry County, Missouri. It had a population of 254 at the 2010 census.
History
Frohna was one of the communities founded in the Saxon German migration of 1838-39, by traditionalist Lutherans fleeing religious persecution in the Kingdom of Prussia. Some 600 of the settlers arrived in Missouri in early 1839, with the majority moving onto available land in the hills of Perry County and establishing towns named for their native communities back in Germany. Frohna was one of these; it was originally named Niederfrohna ("Lower Frohna"), for a village of the same name in the Mulde river valley near the city of Zwickau. The American community's first pastor, E. G. W. Keyl, had been pastor at the Saxon village before the migration, as well as at the neighboring village of Mittelfrohna ("Middle Frohna"), from which some of the settlers also came. Probably as a result of this mixture, the new town soon came to be called simply Frohna.
Though settlement began in 1839, it was not until 1847 that the community's territory was fixed by the Perry County court, and not until 1886 did it receive a post office.[1] Due to the many ties between Frohna and the neighboring town of Altenburg, and the small size of each, there was in recent years a movement to formally unite the communities, but it was opposed by a majority of locals, and as of now, the two remain separate cities (though they do share certain public services, such as the fire department).[2]