Usually, Kirkwood is a postcard suburb.

Founded in 1853 along the Pacific Railroad being built west from St. Louis, Kirkwood long has been known as an idyllic near-suburban community with the feel of a historic small town. Large, stately homes line streets shaded by tall oaks. The 115-year-old brick railroad station, still in use by Amtrak, is across the tracks from City Hall and an anchor of the town's busy and trendy downtown district.

Its many longtime residents are proud of their town's history and of the Kirkwood High School Pioneers. The Pioneers' annual Thanksgiving Day football game against the neighboring Webster Groves Statesmen is a richly traditional event, with local parades and yearlong bragging rights. The 100th game was played last year. Kirkwood won.

Befitting its days as a whistle-stop suburb — back when people took the train downtown to work — Kirkwood is named after James P. Kirkwood, who was chief construction engineer for the Pacific Railroad. That line, later renamed the Missouri Pacific, now is part of the Union Pacific railroad. Downtown St. Louis is 14 miles to the northeast.

The city has about 28,000 residents and a police department of about 55 officers.

This is the second time in barely a year that Kirkwood has become a news dateline that flashed across the world. On Jan. 12, 2007, officers closing in on a child kidnapping were astonished to find not one, but two missing boys in the small apartment of a nondescript pizza-restaurant manager named Michael J. Devlin.

Officers rescued William "Ben" Ownby, then 11, who had been snatched from his school bus stop in Beaufort, Mo., four days earlier. They also found Shawn Hornbeck, who was 11 when he was kidnapped while riding his bike near his home in Richwoods, Mo., on Oct. 6, 2002.

The discovery was national news for weeks. Hornbeck and his parents were guests on the "Oprah Winfrey Show," along with two Kirkwood police officers who had noticed Devlin's pickup the night before the rescue.

The killings Thursday night brought national attention to Kirkwood once again. The officers killed were the third and fourth to have died in the line of duty for Kirkwood since 1898. On July 5, 2005, police Sgt. William McEntee was shot and killed by Kevin Johnson, who fired multiple shots at the officer while he was seated in his patrol car.

Johnson, 22, of the city's Meacham Park neighborhood, was convicted in November and was sentenced to death.

toneil@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8132