Richwoods Missouri is a small unincorporated area in the northern part of Washington County founded in the early 1770's. Located approximately 15 miles west of DeSoto off Route 47, Richwoods still embraces a quiet, small-town feeling.

It's not unusual to see cattle grazing along the winding country roads or hear the clang of goat bells as the baby goats romp in the pastures close to the Bardenheier restaurant and tasting room, one of the handful of business in Richwoods.

The rural area of Richwoods is served by the Richwoods School District which offers pre-school thru eight grade. For high school, students must pick from schools in Potosi, Grandview, Kingston, DeSoto, Sullivan or St. Clair.

Although Richwoods is a small community, it was never so obvious how close a community it is and remains as it was when Shawn Hornbeck disappeared. Shawn's abduction and then safe return helped put Richwoods on the map.

But Shawn isn't the only well known resident of Richwoods. On the banks of Little Indian Creek, behind St. Stephens Catholic Church is the church owned cemetery. Within St. Stephens cemetery stands a grave believed to be the authentic site where French-Canadian trapper Toussaint Charboneau is buried. Born in 1781, Toussaint Charbonneau was the husband of the famed Sacagawea who served as interpreter on the 1805 Lewis and Clark Expedition. At the time of his death in 1866, Charboneau owned a mining company and trading post in Richwoods which later grew into Richwoods general store.

In an attempt to gather more information about Richwoods and the families that make the community a strong, close knit, caring people, Father Liss is inviting people who live in Richwoods or lived in Richwoods before to share their memories with the parish. This is the start of the collections of those histories.