History

George S. Myers of Liggett Myers Tobacco Company was born on May 4, 1832, in Flint Hill. His parents and several sisters are buried in a private cemetery on the Rufkahr property on Mexico Road.

Flint Hill was officially founded in 1836 by Captain Taliferro P. Grantham. Captain Grantham purchased 160 acres of land from Benjamin Pierce and then donated 10 acres for the town of Flint Hill. Settlers from Flinthill, Virginia, were moving west in 1833 and came upon this area. It so reminded them of their home in Virginia, that they settled the area and named it Flint Hill after the town they had left. It was not long and they realized the area could produce the crops they were accustom to growing- tobacco.

Flint Hill, which was originally considered a rough place to live, was slowly being settled by a prosperous and enterprising group of people. The Flint Hill Post Office was established November 4, 1836, and George Myers was the first postmaster. The first Justice of the Peace was A. Broadhead. Mr. Broadhead’s home is still standing in Flint Hill at 5020 Hwy P.

The area's first Catholic congregation organized in Josephville. Flint Hill was originally settled by people of the Methodist faith. Between 1848 and 1855, there were a number of Catholic families in the Flint Hill community.  As early as 1854, a missionary priest would travel from St. Charles and say Mass in a Methodist home in Flint Hill for area Catholics. The Methodist opened their homes to the priest because their houses were more adaptable for the crowds than the Catholic homes.

Flint Hill is prosperous and growing.  It boasted many establishments, among them were a fine hotel, three dry goods stores, a saloon, a tailor shop, a tobacco factory, a farm implements factory, a blacksmith shop, and an attorney. There were also numerous medical doctors in the Flint Hill area. The stage coach, carrying both passengers and mail, passed through Flint Hill and terminated at Troy. 

Flint Hill became a tobacco producing community in the early years. Some of the leading tobacco producers had their start in Flint Hill.  Between 1860 and 1872, George S. Myers was in partnership with several different people, but in 1873 he went into partnership with John Liggett and Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company was formed.

The first public school opened.  At that time there was segregation, the white school had a five month term and the black school had a three month term. Many of the family names that are still prominent in the Flint Hill community served as members of the school board during the beginning years: Sachs, Feldewerth, Roettger, Boehmer, Orf. At one time the building that is presently housing Hakenewerth Drywall was a one room public school.

Paul Brown entered the tobacco business in the Flint Hill area in 1868. Due to health problems, Mr. Brown was out of the tobacco business for a few years, but in 1881 the Brown Tobacco Company was incorporated and Paul Brown was elected president.

The first Catholic Church, built in 1883 named St. Theodore after Rev. Theodore Krainhardt, was a building roughly 20 by 40 feet and would later be converted into a two room school house for the parish when the new church, presently standing, was built in 1900. St. Theodore School building was brought to the present state with the building of the first section in 1913 and then the addition in 2000.