Saint Mary's of the Barrens, Perryville

In eighteen eighteen, French Vincentian priests pushed into the Missouri frontier and founded Saint Mary's of the Barrens at a spot they called 'the barrens' because the oak-savanna landscape had been cleared by Native American burning and looked oddly treeless to European eyes. It became the first seminary west of the Mississippi River, operating a seminary and college that trained Catholic priests for frontier missions across the expanding American interior. The church that anchors the campus today had its cornerstone laid in eighteen twenty-seven and was consecrated in eighteen thirty-seven. The seminary closed in nineteen eighty-five, and the church now serves as a Marian shrine in the small town of Perryville, just off the modern highway.