New Bloomfield: Callaway County's Chicago and Alton Town

New Bloomfield sits ten miles southwest of Fulton and ten miles north of Jefferson City in the heart of Callaway County, the Kingdom of Callaway. The community traces its roots to a Round Prairie post office that opened in eighteen twenty-seven, and the village itself was laid out by Enoch Murray in eighteen thirty-six. It was originally called Bloomfield, but that name was already taken by a postal community in Stoddard County to the south, so the prefix New was added when the post office officially became New Bloomfield in eighteen forty-one.

The town grew slowly until eighteen seventy-two, when the Chicago and Alton Railroad came through. Rail access transformed New Bloomfield from a quiet rural crossroads into a functioning small city with stores, schools, and services drawing from the surrounding farmland. The railroad remains the defining fact of the town's commercial history.