Crawford County, organized in 1829 and named for Georgia Sen. W.H. Crawford, lay in territory ceded by the Osage tribes in 1808 and was roamed by the Delaware and Shawnee into the period of settlement by Southern pioneers in the early 1820's. Early noted for rich banks of iron ore, it became a leading iron producer before the industry's decline in the early 1920's, beginning with the first iron furnace in this central ore district of Missouri's eastern Ozarks, opened near Bourbon in 1818 by William Harrison, the county's first settler, and Josiah Reeves; later furnaces included Scotia in the 1870's and Midland from 1874 to 1894, and near Steelville production used ore from the Cherry Valley Mines, drawing German and Austro-Hungarian settlers. Steelville, the county seat, was laid out in 1836 and named for James Steel, who sold the forty-acre townsite for $50, while William Britton was the first settler there in 1833; court first met at James Harrison home in what is now Phelps County, and Steelville Academy, chartered in 1853, closed in the 1880's. During the Civil War, guerrilla raids and troop movements devastated the area, and the Southwest Br. of the Pac. R.R., built through Bourbon, Leasburg, and Cuba in 1860, was almost destroyed; after the battle of Pilot Knob, Union Gen. Thomas Ewing's troops escaped undetected from Fort Davidson but were overtaken by Confederate Army units at Leasburg, where a thirty-six-hour engagement followed on Sept. 29-30, 1864, before the Confederates withdrew ahead of Union reinforcements. The St. Louis, Salem & Little Rock R.R. reached from Cuba to Steelville and south through the county in 1873, while Cuba was laid out in 1857, Leasburg's first house was built in 1859, and Bourbon's in 1863. Other communities included Cherryville, Huzzah, Dillard, Berryman, Davisville, Cooks Sta., and Wesco; part of the county lies in Clark National Forest, and with the Meramec River, large springs, many prehistoric Indian sites, caves near Leasburg, and old mills at Oak Hill, Westover, and Dillard, the county also included Steelville as the temporary home of J.J. Upchurch, founder of the Ancient Order of United Workmen in PA. in 1868.