Near Tebbetts on the Missouri River, Cote Sans Dessein, or "hill without design," stood apart from similar hills across the river and became the site of a French fort built in 1808. Native Americans attacked the fort in 1815, several months after the 1814 Treaty of Ghent was supposed to end the War of 1812, and the settlement continued until the largest flood to that time destroyed the town in 1844. Many residents then moved across the Missouri River and founded French Village, later called Dauphine and now Bonnots Mill. In the late 1840s, the Callaway Mining and Manufacturing Company opened near Cote Sans Dessein, planning to mine coal and extract coal oil for lighting, and it operated one of the first railroads in Missouri, first powered by horses or mules and later by a Norris engine supplied by Philadelphia investor William Norris, but weak demand for coal and an explosion at the oil distillery ended the venture. Rumors in Callaway County later held that Jesse James spent time in the Tebbetts area between the 1870s and his death in 1882 under names such as James Franklin or Brother Johnson, organizing church groups, teaching singing classes, and escaping when local authorities learned his identity. Callaway County also had a large African American population in the 1800s, ranking fifth in Missouri in the 1830 census with just over 30 percent of residents enslaved, rising to 39.5 percent by 1850, and after emancipation many former slaves remained and founded communities such as the Ridge and Cave's Community. Organized in 1878 by Rev. Ben McCollough, Oakley African Methodist Episcopal Church became the heart of the local African-American community; around 30 African-American families lived in the area in the 1920s, the chapel was remodeled in 1954 by Rev. Marjorie L. Casson, the first female pastor, and Oakley Chapel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. A steamboat town called Hord or Hord's Landing was founded near the river in 1881, but when the railroad arrived in 1893 most of the town moved across the floodplain to the site of present-day Tebbetts, named for Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad officer Louis B. Tebbetts. In the early 1900s, the railroad experimented with burnt clay ballast made from local clay and coal south of Tebbetts, whose burning piles sent thick black smoke over the area for days, and in 1995 road work uncovered the Callaway Farms site, where excavation revealed a 5,000-year-old Native American settlement that appeared to be a permanent, planned village used year round.