Osage County Volksblatt Archive

The Osage County Volksblatt wasprinted in Westphalia, Missouri, from 1896 to 1917. Managed by Henry Castrop, the four-page German-language newspaper was published every Thursday conveying local and county news, including information for the local farmers. Henry Castrop, or Captain Castrop, was one of the most widely known steamboat pilots in central Missouri. His name was synonymous with boating and river news in this section of the state for nearly half a century. Castrop began his river career at the age of 15 with flat-boating on the Osage River. He received his Pilot's license in 1884 at the age of 21. By 1896, he was captain of the steamboat Frederick on the Osage River, and in 1898 he became part-owner of the Osage and Missouri River Packet Company. Castrop navigated the Osage River from the mouth of the Missouri River at Bonnot's Mill in Osage County to Linn Creek in Camden County. Castrop published the Volksblatt while continuing his riverboat career. Besides being a steamboat captain and newspaper editor and publisher, Castrop served from 1916 to 1920 as a clerk to Senator Sam B. Cook in the Missouri legislature.

The University Missourian, published in Columbia, Missouri, included an article about the Volksblatt and its readers in its May 11, 1910 issue:

Although, the people of Westphalia, MO. have been in America for seventy-five years and can speak English, their love of their native tongue supports a German newspaper, the Osage County Volksblatt. Henry Castrop, the only editor of a German newspaper attending Editor's Week at the University of Missouri translates the news from English to German before it is printed in his paper. Castrop states, 'Yes, everybody in Westphalia can read and talk English, but we feel there should be a German newspaper in the county. Almost all of the county correspondence is written in English, but I translate it in to German for the paper.' Westphalia is in Osage County. It was settled seventy-five years.

Castrop quit publishing the Volksblatt with the July 19, 1917 issue. He purchased a farm in the Glasgow Bottoms of the Missouri River in Saline County and moved his family there, becoming a prominent citizen of that county. Castrop died on February 24, 1937, at the age of 74.