DR. FRANZ ARZT
Dr. Franz Joseph Arzt
Franz Joseph Arzt, born November 26, 1844 in the small Austrian town of Ceská Třebová, to Joseph and Barbara (Barbary) Arzt, moved to the United States upon completing his medical education at the University of Vienna at 21 years old (1866). His parents had moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa just months prior, to escape the impending Austro-Prussian War.
Franz decided he would practice medicine in California, so in 1867 he set out on horseback down the east side of the Mississippi River to St. Louis, presumably to pick up and follow the Lewis and Clark trail. While crossing the Mississippi on the Wiggins Ferry, he most likely witnessed the early construction of the world’s first steel-truss bridge, the Eads Bridge. Steel played an important role in Franz’ life, as his father helped build the railroad system in Austria during his years as a mechanical engineer.
Upon checking into a hotel, Franz met three doctors who shared his native bohemian language. They convinced him to stay in St. Louis. Practicing medicine here was probably an easy argument for them to make. In 1855, the early Bohemian immigrants built St. John Nepomuk in St. Louis, the first Bohemian church in America. In 1854 the port city of St. Louis, Missouri became the center of Czech life in America, mostly because the Mississippi river was the best connection with the Eastern seaboard and because there was an established German community that these early Czech settlers could relate to. Dr. Arzt found a welcoming home. For better or worse, he also arrived at the beginning of the Cholera epidemic in St. Louis.