Bowling Green, the capital of Pike County, lies 12 miles from the Mississippi River on a rolling plain 880 feet above sea level. The first pioneer there, John W. Basye, came in 1820, and by 1823 the settlement, named for Bowling Green, Kentucky, had replaced Louisiana as the Pike County seat of justice. Located on the pioneer Salt River Trail, the town grew steadily. Its early schools included Pike Academy in 1837, Isaac W. Basye's Normal School in 1867, and J.D. Meriwether's Bowling Green College in 1881. The Chicago and Alton Railroad, later the G.M. and O., was completed in 1871, and the Saint Louis and Hannibal in 1876. Limestone quarries opened in the late 1800s. Near Bowling Green, the first Presbytery of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church west of the Mississippi was organized in 1820. When Pike County, named for explorer Zebulon M. Pike, was organized in 1818, it included all of Missouri's Upper Salt River Country, from which 9 whole counties and parts of 6 others were later formed. Many Pike Countians joined the 1849 Gold Rush, and the ballads "Joe Bowers" and "Sweet Betsy from Pike" are associated with the county. Bowling Green serves as the seat of a grain, livestock, and fruit farming county in Missouri's Glacial Plains Region. Sac and Fox Indians ceded claims to the area in 1804 and again in 1824. During the War of 1812, settlers who had come to the county from Kentucky, North Carolina, and South Carolina as early as 1808 found protection in Buffalo Fort near Louisiana. In the Civil War, the county's only action came at nearby Ashley in 1862, when about 30 Union troops held the town against a raid by 150 Confederates. In 1861, 8 companies of Union troops trained in Bowling Green. Bowling Green was the home of Congressman and Speaker of the House James Beauchamp "Champ" Clark, and his son, U.S. Senator Bennett Champ Clark, was born there. Diplomat John F. Swift and Admiral W.R. Purnell were also born there, and Elliot W. Major, the 33rd governor of Missouri, lived there. Local points of interest include the state statue of Champ Clark by F.C. Hibbard, the Clark House known as Honey Shuck, the J.W. Basye and Purnell Houses, and the Purnell memorial plaque at the courthouse.