Historic Farmstead Donated as Wildlife Refuge / Visit Old Hollow and the Life of a Fascinating Frontier Man

By Pauline Masson –

There was a time in frontier America when a person with many skills and abundant energy could use the natural resources that surrounded him to build a prosperous life. If he had six sons to help with the building, that would be a benefit.

Frederick William Poertner was such a man. More than the proverbial jack ofalltrades, Frederick Poertner was a successful grower of all things, skilled carpenter, frontier patent medicine bottler, gourmet food provider and a wheeler-dealer in land transactions. When called, he found time to serve on the school board.

We’re hearing about him now because the farm he bought in 1875 in the German settlement known as Dutch Hollow, later just Hollow, immdiately west of Franklin County on  Hwy 100, is to be opened as a wildlife refuge, for picnicking, hiking and birdwatching.

The house that Frederick Poertner built with his own hands, has long disappeared, as have the dozen or more homes he built in the nearby communites of Pond and Glencoe, but 27 acres of the original 160 acre farm offers visitors a glimpse of the abundant natural resources that Poertner tapped to create a life that still fascinates his children’s children, great-grandchildren and the volunteers at the Wildwood Historical Society (WHS).

A picture of the Glenoce Lime Company Store that Poertner built was printed opposite the August page of the 2023 WHS historical calendar. Local historian Janet Daneil, who has collected all the WHS calenders shared it with me. The Lime Company land was donated to the state conservation department and became part of Rockwood Reservation.Poertner’s building served as the visitors center for decades.

Linda Camp, WHS president, met me at the WHS museum on on Labor Day to share the society’s collection of Poertner and Hollow history.

I learned about Poertner and the new park last week when an over the road truck driver named Marie Davies, who lives in Florida, called me last to see if I had any history on the Poertner family. 

She found my name in a Missourian article about the late Irma “Bebe” Poertner McKenzie, a Pacific area history luminary whose life avocation was preserving local history. Bebe attended every meeting of the MVGHS, worked weekly to assemble and file the society collection, served for decades as society secretary, contributed to the society newsletter Treeshakers. In the June-July 2009 issue she listed the surnames of the more than 160 family histories housed in the society archives.

Ms. Davis, like Bebe, a descendant of the Poertners of Hollow, was researching family history. Davis and her relatives across the country had learned that the Old Poertner farmstead, was to become a wild life refuge named Poertner Park and the Poertner relatives, in varying degrees of cousinship, were touching base to avow their places in the family history, and maybe plan a visit to the site.

This unexpected query called up history of the Village of Hollow, where Bebe, a lifelong resident, was recognized as its official historian by the WHS. The search also revealed numerous Poertners in Franklin County phone books, churches and cemeteries. If a collective visit takes place it could become quite a gathering.

Poertner Park, or the new wildlife refuge, is located in a beautiful wooded area, one mile south of Hwy 100 on Hencken Road (near Stovall’s Grove) in the historic community of Hollow.

In 1992, when a group of community planners decided to incorporate a huge section of St. Louis County into a modern, well managed city, the City of  Wildwood enveloped ten historic communities – Centaur, Fox Creek, Glencoe, Grover, Keleo, Melrose, Monarch, Orrville, Pond, and Hollow.The WHS has studiously collected the histories of the individual towns and make them available to researchers.

For the history of Hollow, located on Highway 100 immediately east of Franklin County in west St. Louis County, they relied on Bebe. The community was originally named “Deutsch Hollow” so called by the German settlers, who came to the area in 1834. “They liked the way this valley – or hollow – looked like their homeland. Later the name was shortened to Hollow.” Bebe later recorded.

Bebe had fond memories of all things Hollow – she and her husband Charles H. “Mac” McKenzie built a home on present day Bebe Valley Lane – and of her grandfather Frederick William Poertner.

“My grandparents Frederick and Emilie Grah Poertner nad seven children: William, August, Emil, George, Emily, Fred, and my fathr Gilbert, the youngest,” Bebe said. “Grandpa was a farmer, carpenter, a wheeler dealer . . . sometimes he’d buy some land and re-sell it the same day.”

Bebe leaves the best impression of what life was like on the original 160 acre farm. Frederik had a greenhouse and raised and sold plants every spring. He raised pigeons for squab, which he sold to fancy restaurants and hotels in St. Louis. In addition to raising chickens, hogs, cattle and crops, Fredrick and Emilie made half a dozen patent medicines for a variety of animals and sold them to neighboring farmers. 

“He built a lot of the houses on Maple Lane in Pond and in Glencoe,” she said. “The company store at Glencoe Hollow, later used as the Rockwood Reservation visitors center was built by Frederick Poertner.”

A series of general stores were stung along Maanchester Road. Bebe once described them all to us in a MFGHS meeting. She described Hollow as  “A small low place,:” and she knew every residence and every store:

Uncle Henry Poertnr had a year round general store and an ice cream and sandwich stand,  Henry also had a blacksmith shop and ran the Hollow Post Office. In their tiny store the Hilderruth family served sandwiches, plate lunches, ice cream, soda and home made pies. They were so progressive they had a gas pump, telephone booth and a bus stop. From his little store Hugo Roesebaum a gruff man with a speech empediment, sold 3.2 beer “to go,” but he gave candy and trinkets to all the kids. The Morrison’s offered general welding. At Alfred Poertner’s small filling station, he also sold, oil, tires and spark plugs.

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The most visible – and most historic – section of Hollow that survives today is Stovall’s Grove, which was originally Hencken’s Grove. The Stovall’s purchased the Hencken Store, that was a relay station for the old St. Louis and Jefferson City Stage Coach line. In 1884 a Post Office for Hollow, Missouri was established. It was discontinued in 1904. 

With the help of a Hencken family member, the WHS was able to acquire the Hencken farmstead and turned it into a history museum, which open to the public on Monday mornings and by appointment.

The 27-acre Poertner farmstead, located at 4064 Hencken Road, about a mile south of Stovall’s Grove, was originally 160 acres and the birthplace one line of the large Poertner clan.

The founder of the new wildlife refuge center, Frederick William Poertner and his wife Emilie Grah, lived in Hollow for about 40 years. Bebe’s father Gilbert E. Poertner, Sr., was a son of the founder. 

Bebe was a living history resource, a life member of the Meramec Valley Genealogical and Historical Society, a member of the American Legion Ladies Auxiliary, planner and co-organizer with Ron Krienkamp of annual Poertner reunions, and like her grandfathr, an avid gardener of native plants and flowers.

The last owner of the original Poertner farmstead was Joanna Yost, a public school teacher who died in 2018. Among her records was found her intention to donate her property to the City of Wildwood, with stipulations that it was to be maintained as an undeveloped wildlife refuge for picnicking, bird watching, hiking and fishing. No hunting or killing of animals was to be allowed, and it was to be named Poertner Park.