St. Robert, Missouri: Gospel Ridge to Gate Town

Before Saint Robert existed, this was quiet ridge country east of Waynesville. When Fort Leonard Wood was established in December of nineteen forty to train engineers for World War Two, thousands of soldiers flooded into Pulaski County and needed a parish. A Catholic church was built to serve them, and the settlement beside the post took the name Saint Robert. Today Saint Robert is essentially the commercial and residential gateway to a major Army installation, a town built entirely in the shadow of a military mission that has never stopped.