Rolla

Rolla, an Ozark plateau town 1120 feet above sea level on a natural passageway to southwest Missouri midway between St. Louis and Springfield, was a “Child of the railroad.” The Southwestern Branch of the Pacific Railway chose the site for an office and warehouses in 1855, and Rolla became the county seat of Phelps County in 1858 when E.W. Bishop, once associated with the railroad, donated 50 acres for that purpose; court was held in the railroad office for a time. Phelps County honors Missouri Governor John S. Phelps, and the town name is probably a phonetic adaptation of Raleigh, North Carolina, though other theories exist. Early settlers found saltpeter for gunpowder in nearby caves. During the Civil War, Rolla’s strategic position at the terminus of a railway made it a major Federal military encampment: after Lyon’s defeat and death at Wilson’s Creek in 1861, his troops retreated here, and in 1862 Curtis left here with 12,000 men for the decisive Union victory at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Fort Wyman and Fort Dette within the town recall elaborate Civil War fortifications. In 1871 the University of Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, an early school of mines in the U.S., opened here and developed a notable mineral museum. Rolla also includes the State Trachoma Hospital, the first such institution in the U.S., completed in 1939, along with Missouri Geological Survey offices and branch offices of the Federal Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Geological Survey. Nearby, Saint James has the State Federal Soldiers Home, founded in 1897, and Missouri’s Boys Town, a youth conservation project opened in 1949; near Saint James, Rosati, formerly Knobview, is an Italian settlement famed for grape production, and Maramec Iron Works, 7 miles southeast of Saint James, was the site of Missouri’s first major commercial iron furnaces in 1826. Near the iron works, Maramec Spring averages 96 million gallons daily, and part of Mark Twain National Forest lies in an area rich in caves, streams, springs, highland views, and Indian mounds. In nearby Pulaski County, 26 miles southwest, is Fort Leonard Wood, a U.S. Army training post.

Rolla, Missouri · United States