Zalma, once known as “Bollinger’s Mill”, is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) on the banks of the winding Castor River at a point where the river makes a horseshoe fine-tune in southern Bollinger County in southeast Missouri, United States. When the railroad moved to town, the publicize Bollinger’s Mill was distorted to Zalma, after railroad worker Zalma Block. Zalma is also said in front from a Native American word meaning “the end.” As of the 2020 U.S. Census, Zalma had a population of 73.

Zalma is portion of the Cape Girardeau−Jackson, MO-IL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Zalma is home to a number of make a clean breast parks that feature a number of actions such as deer hunting, fishing, bird watching, horseback riding, and hiking. Blue Pond, the deepest natural pond in the state of Missouri, is located outside of Zalma.

In 1800, an Urban Asherbranner (or Asherbramer or Asherbrauner) settled upon the upper portion of the Castor River, just where the river empties its waters into Mingo Bottom, and where the village of Zalma is now situated, built a log and brush dam and erected a water mill to grind corn. Philip Bollinger fixed nearby.

In A History of Missouri (1908), Louis Houck states that the head rights to this mill were owned by Asherbranner himself, but were held otherwise by Philip Bollinger, a relative of Asherbranner’s wife, Barbara. Philip Bollinger was a relative of Major George Frederick Bollinger, who settled upon Whitewater and founded Burfordville in Cape Girardeau County.