Wittenberg, Missouri

Wittenberg is an unincorporated community in Brazeau Township in eastern Perry County, Missouri. It is located on the Mississippi River 14 miles (23 km) southeast of Perryville. Wittenberg is located in the Brazeau Bottoms on Brazeau Creek opposite Grand Tower, Illinois and Tower Rock, a landmark island in the Mississippi River.

Wittenberg is one of seven towns and villages in the area founded by German Lutheran immigrants in 1839. It and the others—Altenburg, Dresden, Frohna, Johannisberg, Paitzdorf, and Seelitz—were all named by settlers for towns in the Saxony region of their native country. The city's namesake, Wittenberg, Germany, is important in Lutheran history as the place where founder Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation.

The immigrant group would eventually form the backbone of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and they considered Tower Rock, nearby in the Mississippi River, to be their own version of Plymouth Rock in their search for religious freedom. At its high point, Wittenberg had as many as 400 residents. In addition to St. Paul's Lutheran church and one-room school, the town supported a brewery, a furniture factory, two grocery stores, a tavern, a flour mill, a cooperage, and two hotels.

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