Boonville

Boonville began with pioneer Mother Hannah Allison Cole and her nine children, who settled on the Missouri River bluffs in 1810 where Saint Joseph Hospital now stands. After her husband, William T. Cole, was killed by Indians, Hannah ran the first river ferry there, and during the War of 1812 her place served a wide area as a neighborhood fort. Located on trails leading west and southwest, Boonville was laid out in 1817 by Charles Lucas and Asa Morgan and named for Daniel Boone. It became the seat of Cooper County in 1819; the county, the second in the Boons Lick Region, had been organized in 1818 and named for pioneer Sarshall Cooper. Boonville grew as a river port, distribution point, and cultural center. Thespian Hall, also called the Lyric, the oldest theater in use in the Mississippi Valley, was built in 1855-57. A boarding school opened in 1844 and is now known as The Kemper School, and the first State Fair was held there in 1853. Near the town on June 17, 1861, the Battle of Boonville, the first engagement of the War Between the States in Missouri, saw Federals under General Nathaniel Lyon rout untrained State Guards under General John S. Marmaduke. In an upland prairie county devoted to grain and livestock farming, Boonville stands in territory ceded by Osage tribes. Settlers from the South were later joined by many from Germany. By the early 1900's, the M.K.T. and Missouri Pacific railroads had supplanted river trade. The railroad bridge at Boonville was built in 1874 and the highway bridge in 1924. Nearby and local points of interest include Harley City Park, Christ Episcopal Church of 1846, Walnut Grove Cemetery, the Missouri Training School for Boys dating from 1889, the grave of fur trader and Missouri's first Lieutenant Governor William H. Ashley atop an Indian mound near the mouth of the Lamine in Cooper County, Chouteau Springs on land given to Pierre Chouteau by the Osage in 1792, and Rocky Cut near Otterville, where the James and Younger Boys robbed a train on July 7, 1876. Boonville was also the birthplace or home of William M. Williams, Lon V. Stephens, Walter Williams, David Barton, Jacob F. Gmelich, George G. Vest, George C. Bingham, and C. C. Bell.

Boonville, Missouri · United States