ADT-Monitored Home Security Service in Kirkwood, MO

Kirkwood is an inner-ring western suburb of St. Louis located in St. Louis County, Missouri. As of the 2010 census, the city’s population was 27,540. Founded in 1853, the city is named after James P. Kirkwood, builder of the Pacific Railroad through that city. It was the first planned suburb located west of the Mississippi River.

Plans for a further community close to St. Louis were begun after the St. Louis flame of 1849 and the preceding and subsequent cholera outbreaks that killed one-tenth of the residents of downtown St. Louis. In 1850, Hiram W. Leffingwell and Richard Smith Elliott bought land 14 miles (23 km) from downtown, which was at just about the thesame time James P. Kirkwood, chief engineer of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, was laying out a route for the train line. The city of Kirkwood, named after the chief engineer, was platted in 1852. Kirkwood was the first suburban municipality built uncovered of the St. Louis city boundaries.

When the railroad reached the community in 1853, the developers sold lots for the Kirkwood Association. Other Leffingwell developments were to put in the construction of Grand Avenue and the instigation of Forest Park. In 1866, the Quinette Cemetery was built, which is one of the five historic African American burial grounds in the St. Louis area.