Scott County, the second county formed in Missouri's Southeast Lowland Region, was organized in 1821 and named for John Scott, the state's first Congressman. Southerners were the first settlers on Spanish land grants in the late 1790's. The King's Highway, El Camino Real, laid out in 1789, crossed the county, which lies in territory claimed by Osage tribes until 1808, and the Delaware and Shawnee roamed the area into the 1820's. Benton, the county seat, was laid out in 1822 and named for Thomas Hart Benton, one of Missouri's first U.S. Senators; from 1864 to 1878 the county seat was at Commerce, a town laid out in 1823 on the Mississippi River. Long known as Tywappity, the Commerce townsite was a trading post and river landing by 1803, and the first Baptist Church in what is now Missouri was formed there in 1805. New Hamburg, the county's third town, was settled by German immigrants in the 1840's, and in Saint Lawrence Catholic churchyard stands their first log church. Sikeston, the county's fourth and largest town, was settled in 1800 and laid out in 1860 by John Sikes on the Cairo and Fulton Railroad, Missouri Pacific. Scott County, a producer of cotton, soybeans, melons, and grain, lies between the Mississippi and Little River District drainage ditches, one of the largest drainage systems in the U.S., established in 1905. Crowley's Ridge, a remnant of an old coastal plain, crosses the county. Devastated by guerrilla raids during the Civil War, the county grew rapidly from the 1870's to the early 1900's as dense forests were lumbered off and numerous railroads were built. Towns founded in this period were Diehlstadt, Morley, Oran, Perkins, Blodgett, Crowder, Vanduser, Illmo, Fornfelt, Scott City, Chaffee, Ancell, and Kelso. The Thebes Mississippi River railroad bridge at Illmo dates from 1905. Nearby is Cape Saint Croix, a rock island in the river where Father De Montigny erected a cross in 1699. Near Morley is the grave of Nathaniel W. Watkins, state legislator, General Missouri State Guards, and half-brother of Henry Clay. Wilson Brown, the ninth Lieutenant Governor of Missouri, and early legislators Joseph Hunter Two and Abraham Hunter lived in the county for a time, and Rezin Bowie, brother of James Bowie, was syndic of the Tywappity settlement before 1800.