The Lamine River first drew settlement to the site of Clifton City, where George Cranmer of Paris, Ky., settled in 1832 at what later became the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway river crossing and, with James Glasgow, built Cranmer's Mill, later Corum's Mill, to produce flour, meal, and lumber. Named for the nearby cliffs or high bluffs over the Lamine, the town took the name Clifton, while the river itself had been called Riviere a la Mine around 1720 by a French prospecting party under Phillip Renault, who searched Missouri for copper and silver but found mainly lead. Clifton City grew rapidly after the railroad arrived: the Sedalia-Boonville line was surveyed in 1871, tracks reached the town on April 10, 1873, and the town was platted on Sept. 29, 1873, by Herman Bidstrup and Peter Ladue. J.E. Potter bought the first lot in December 1875 for a store and post office, the Methodist Church bought five lots, and an MKT depot built in 1874 for $1937 helped make the town a shipping point for cattle, hogs, sheep, and other agricultural products. The town was once known as the Devil's Half-Acre because a grocery sold bad whiskey that often led to skirmishes, and oral history suggests that during the Civil War Confederate raider William Quantrill used this part of the county as a refuge, with Jesse and Frank James possibly doing the same after the war. Like other small towns along the Katy Railroad, Clifton City became more than a train stop, developing businesses, cultural life, schools, and a role as an agricultural center during the late 1800s and early 1900s. In the early 1900s prosperity increased further after a 1907 depot fire led to a new slate-roofed depot, local workers found employment in Sweeney Quarry, Cue Higdon shipped mules nationwide and supplied pack mules to the army during World War I, and by the 1920s the town supported passenger trains and a wide range of businesses. As automobiles and trucks replaced rail traffic, however, a farm-to-market road built in 1934-35 began the decline of the railroad and the town businesses tied to it; the school closed in 1951, Mt. Moriah African Methodist Episcopal Church closed in 1974, and the last Katy train ran in 1987.