Bellevue Valley lies between Ozark spurs, with Buford Mountain on the east, Missouri’s second highest peak, named for William Buford, who came from Virginia in 1810, and whose name carried on in the valley. The first people were mound-builders, followed by Indians, and the French named Bellevue Valley in 1763. William Reed from Tennessee was the first settler in 1798, and the town began with Tom Sloan’s blacksmith shop. Alexander Craighead named the town for New Caledonia, Scotland, platted it, bought the first lot, and in 1818 built the first store onto his home, which was still standing in remodeled form in 1966, while Robert Sloan built the first home. Local industries included Rocky Hollow Cheese Factory, the Harvey and Casey Flouring Mill in 1875, and tanneries. From 1823 to 1842, Jacob Eversole, John Perry, and Martin Ruggles established the Springfield Iron Works at Furnace Creek, and ox teams hauled pig iron to Ashenbraner and Smith’s Cedar Creek forge near the White farm, where a dam provided power; this was the first place in the state to produce iron products in May 1825, and Forge Hill lay on the east. The first school was a round log house at the Methodist cemetery, where Miles Goforth taught in 1804. The St. Louis Conference built Bellevue Collegiate Institute from 1870 to 1872 in front of an academy built by stockholders in 1867 and 1868, and it remained an institute until 1902; J.W. McKinney began a high school in 1912, a granite block school followed in 1936, and after joining with Belgrade, Valley High was built in 1951 with an addition in 1965. William Woods formed a Methodist Society in 1810 and built Shiloh Meeting House near the school before 1814; Joseph Reed deeded land to the church in 1818, among the firsts in Methodism west of the Mississippi, a brick Methodist church followed in 1852, it burned in 1909, and a third church was built in 1911. In 1816, thirty Scotch-Irish Presbyterians led by Wm. Sloan and Robert Giddings formed a church, the first west of the Mississippi; its first log house at the Presbyterian cemetery burned, a brick building replaced it, and after Frank Morrow deeded ground to the town, a church was built from 1864 to 1868. The Assembly of God organized and built in 1963. Masonic Lodge Tyro No. 12, the oldest in Missouri, was organized in 1825 with Martin Ruggles as first worshipful master, and in 1905 the lodge gave and dedicated his monument in the Presbyterian cemetery before a crowd of 1000; he was buried near his brother, Comfort Ruggles, a Boston Tea Party patriot. O.E.S. No. 321 was chartered in 1912, with Mr. and Mrs. W.J. Dent as first worthy patron and matron. During the Civil War, guerillas fighting Union soldiers under Sgt. Warfield on September 14, 1864, were repulsed, and on September 29, 1864, Maj. Gen. Sterling Price sent Maj. Gen. Marmaduke’s division after Brig. Gen. Ewing, who ran into Brig. Gen. Shelby’s division here; Ewing fought a successful rear guard action and retreated through Palmer. The first post office opened in 1826 with John G. Bryan as postmaster, Caledonia was incorporated in 1870 as the smallest town in the state, and old homes were associated with the Long, Goodykoontz, Vandiver, Byrd, Jane Thompson, Eversole, Carr, Marbury, Ruggles, Crenshaw, and Southall families; George Breckenridge was a Revolutionary War veteran, and Adella B. Moore was a historian.