Toonerville, Missouri

Toonerville is an unincorporated community in St. Charles County, in the U.S. state of Missouri.

Toonerville has its start as a roadside gas station whose owner included the image of a popular comic in his sign. The community was named after Toonerville Folks, a comic strip.

In the 1930s, Weldon Spring was isolated from the greater St. Louis area due to the Missouri River. Three towns: Hamburg, Howell, and Toonerville, were connections to the outside world as the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroads had stops in Hamburg. Southern St. Charles county gained direct access to the St. Louis area because of the completion of the Daniel Boone Bridge in 1937. Locals had intended this project to increase opportunities for the county, however it gave the U.S. Army an area in rural Missouri, to develop weapons for the anticipated WWII.

Before the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Army wanted to utilize an isolated spot to develop explosive weapons such as TNT and DNT explosives.

In October 1940, the local newspapers had announced that the U.S. Army was going to take 17,000 acres of land through eminent domain and that the townspeople who inhabited these areas had three months to vacate their homes.

Houses, churches, and school buildings were immediately demolished and the town ceased to exist within three months of the order.

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