After the War of 1812, there was a westward flow of migration through the present-day St. Charles county on the Booneslick Trail, which would later have parts of the trail become modern-day I-70. During the 1830s, many German settlers came to the O'Fallon area inspired by Gottfried Duden's Republic of the Western States of North America. The report was based on his account of living in St. Charles. O'Fallon's history as a city starts in the 1850s. Arnold Krekel was a German immigrant who held a number of offices including U.S. District Court Judge and Missouri state legislator, he founded a German language newspaper, and he invested in the North Missouri Railroad along with many other things. Krekel never lived in O'Fallon, however, his younger brother, Nicholas, built the first home which still stands. In 1854, Judge Krekel granted the North Missouri Railroad permission to build a depot on his property along with a right-of-way on his "Krekel Addition". In 1856, Judge Krekel named the depot O'Fallon Station after his friend John O'Fallon, the railroad's president and a noted philanthropist. In 1860, the "Krekel Addition" was renamed O'Fallon, and in 1912, it was incorporated. For many years, O'Fallon was a quiet, small community in central St. Charles County, until the early 1980s, when the population boom began. The population for O'Fallon rose to over 17,000 by 1990, and is now close to 70,000 residents as of 2006. In 2006 Money Magazine named O'Fallon as one of its Best 100 Places to Live. The River City Rascals of the independent Frontier League play at T.R. Hughes Ballpark in O'Fallon, which was built in 1999, and is located on Tom Ginnever Boulevard and T.R. Hughes Boulevard, near the downtown sector. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Fallon%2C_Missouri