Biohazard Cleanup Near West Hermann Hermann, MO

Hermann is the county seat of Gasconade County, Missouri, a role it has held since 1842, and it sits on the south bank of the Missouri River near the center of the Missouri Rhineland.

Hermann was founded in 1837 by the Deutsche Ansiedlungs-Gesellschaft zu Philadelphia (the German Settlement Society of Philadelphia), which bought some 11,300 acres intending to build a colony that would be "German in every particular" to preserve German language and culture in America.

The town was named for Hermann (Arminius), the German hero who defeated the Romans, and its first 17 settlers arrived in November 1837, with schoolteacher George Bayer leading another group of families in the spring of 1838.

Finding the steep hillsides poor for ordinary farming, Hermann's settlers planted vineyards where wild grapes thrived, and within a decade steamboats were bringing visitors from St. Louis to the town's first Weinfest.

Hermann is the commercial center of the Hermann American Viticultural Area, designated in 1983 as one of the first federally recognized wine regions in the United States, whose seven wineries produce about one-third of Missouri's wine.

Stone Hill Winery, the largest winemaking business in Missouri, and Hermannhof Winery are both located in Hermann.

Prohibition shut down Hermann's wine industry in the 20th century, and the area's vineyards and wineries only began their renaissance in the 1960s.

Grape-growing pioneer George Husmann worked in Hermann, and a Norton grapevine believed to be about 170 years old still produces fruit at the town's OakGlenn Winery.

The Deutschheim State Historic Site in Hermann preserves the homes and heritage of the German immigrants who founded the Missouri Rhineland.

Hermann's population was 2,185 at the 2020 census, and at the 2010 census its 2,431 residents lived in 1,047 households.