Looking Back: Borgman Road

by Marcia Napier, Grain Valley Historical Society

     The mystery continues…how do people spell their name? Last week it was “Little” and this week it is “Borgman.” Or was it Littell and Borgmann?
     Who names a road and when was it named? Not everything is on the internet! I have spent several hours, to no avail, attempting to learn when signs were put up on the rural roads in Jackson County. I suspect, and I’m only guessing, that by the time the road signs were put up, their namesake was long deceased, and the names were “Americanized” by the highway department.
     The Borgmann family came to Missouri from Prussia (Germany) in the 1830s. They remained in Warren County (around Marthasville and Charrette) for nearly 50 years. Henry H. Borgmann, Jr., his brother John and sister Caroline came to Fort Osage Township on the 1878, first appearing on the U S Census there in 1880. It was on August 19, 1880, that Henry married Mary Elizabeth Drewel, the daughter of a minister from Wellington, Missouri. Mary and Henry had six children who grew up in the area and attended school at Levesy. Mary and Henry Borgmann and many of their children and grandchildren are buried at the Ebenezer Cemetery (Bone Hill) south of Levasy on H highway at Bone Hill Road. So, while the Borgmanns and their offspring were mostly in Fort Osage Township, the road named for them extends from Neil Childs Road south into Sni-A-Bar Township ending at Truman Road.
     And, on a personal note, their great grandson Henry Twiehaus graduated from Grain Valley High School in 1964. He was my classmate.
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Photo credit: Grain Valley Historical Society