ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. — St. Charles County officials are opening a new park July 30, named after a former enslaved person who joined the Union Army during the Civil War. He went on to become a property owner in the county.
Benjamin Oglesby’s farm, located on park property, is where Oglesby and his wife, Martha, raised their family.
The 199-acre Oglesby Park is located at 2801 West Meyer Road in Foristell.
Oglesby was born a slave in 1825 in Bedford, Virgina and was brought to Missouri in 1837 at the age of 12 by his owner, Marshall Bird. He worked on a farm near present-day Interstate 70 and Highway W in the Foristell/Wentzville area. In 1864, at the age of 39, Oglesby fled the captivity of Bird and enlisted in the Union Army.
“Benjamin Oglesby fought in Arkansas, was honorably discharged, came back to the area, and in 1870, five years after Emancipation in Missouri, he purchased this property from a German farmer," St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann said. "Oglesby paid off the mortgage in seven years, lived here with his family, and his relatives continued to live here until the 1960s."
Oglesby and his wife, Martha, went on to have six children: Medora, Samuel, Oskar, Bell, Albert and Charlie.
Oglesby Park will feature a 12-acre lake. Mother nature will fill it with water, and a natural resources aquatics team will stock it with fish.
“It’ll be a nice fishing lake,” said Ryan Graham, St. Charles County Parks director. “We’re looking at putting in a I-paddle station, which will allow people to use kayaks and paddleboards on the lake. And it will also have an asphalt trail all the way around it, so people can walk around the lake, too.”
Special from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. with a ribbon-cutting scheduled for 11:30 a.m.
An announcement regarding the Oglesby Park grand opening can be found on the St. Charles County website.