Glasgow was founded in 1836 as the successor to Old Chariton, Monticello, and Thorntonsburg, earlier settlements abandoned because of disease or location, and the town's land was bought from Talton Turner and Jas. Earickson for $2758 by a group of proprietors that included Jas. Glasgow, for whom the town was named. The first lots were sold on Sept. 10, 1836, and the town was incorporated on Feb. 27, 1845, with early settlers coming from Ky., Tenn. and Va. By 1860 Glasgow had become a major shipping and distributing center, with fortunes made in tobacco, hemp and wheat, heavy river traffic along wharves from Bear to Gregg’s Creeks, a plank road to Huntsville from 1853 to 1864 that cost $84,000, a tri-weekly stage to St. Louis beginning in 1837 with a fare of $10, a post office established Sept. 27, 1837, and telegraph service in 1852. During 1861 to 1865 the town saw much guerrilla activity, notably that of Bill Anderson, and at the Battle of Glasgow on Oct. 15, 1864, Union forces holding the town under Col. Chester Harding faced Confederate forces commanded across the river by Gen. Joe Shelby and to the east and south by Gen. J.B. Clark and Col. S.D. Jackman; the Union gun boat West Wind was sunk at the foot of Market St., City Hall with Union munitions and the area to the south were destroyed by fire, and the battle ended in a Confederate victory. Glasgow was also an early educational center, with Glasgow Female Seminary in 1849, Pritchett College from 1866 to 1917 founded by Rev. J.O. Swinney, where Cornelia Kuemmel taught, Lewis College from 1867 to 1891, and Lewis Library in 1866, the oldest west of Miss. River, donated by Ben J.W. Lewis and family and Maj. Jas. W. Lewis. The town was the site of many old businesses, homes and churches, including the Methodist Church, the oldest church, founded in 1844 with its building erected in 1849 and used as a hospital in the Civil War; Henderson Drug store, founded in 1841 and called the oldest one-family drug store west of Miss. R.; Glasgow Savings Bank, organized in 1871 from Weston F. Birch and Son Banking House of 1852 and associated with a loan for the Pony Express; the Glasgow Missourian, begun in 1867; and the oldest existing Masonic lodge, founded in 1876. Glasgow was also the site of the first all steel bridge in the world, built in 1879 by Gen. Wm. S. Smith, Engr. for C. and A.R.R. and replaced in 1900 for heavier traffic, and in the 20th century it included Glasgow Sand Co. in 1915, the Landon Laird Hotel, formerly Adgate, in 1923, Glasgow Co-op Ass’n established in 1923, the first free highway bridge over Mo. R. in 1925, Monnig Ind. in 1956 as an outgrowth of Rall Bros. of 1887, Ed. S. Maupin Lbr. in 1943, Hawthorn Co. in 1959, and district and area offices for K.C. Power and Light Co. and U.S. Engrs.