History: 

Settled by immigrants from Melle, Germany in 1839, the City of New Melle is a small scenic town in the historic southwestern section of St. Charles County, Missouri. Located at the intersections of Hwy Z, D, and F, it is the Crossroads to Wine Country. New Melle lies between Wentzville, Defiance, Foristell, Augusta, and O’Fallon and is about 37 miles west of St. Louis. The first settlers found their way up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to St. Charles and traveled west along the Booneslick Trail, then south to the highest point, a site that reminded them of their homeland and was appropriately named “New Melle”.

The immigrants organized the St. Paul Lutheran Church in 1844 and quickly formed a town. Before 1900, there were four general stores, a mill, small hotel, two wagon makers, three blacksmith shops, a public school, two parochial schools, a creamery, a furniture shop, shoe cobbler, jeweler, brick kiln, and a large park. All was thriving until the Great Depression in the 1930s, followed by World War II in the 1940s.

As the years passed, the beautiful countryside surrounding New Melle was rediscovered and began filling with families in attractive subdivisions and small businesses.