Mexico, the county seat of Audrain County in Missouri's Little Dixie and glacial plains regions, was laid out by Robert C. Mansfield and James H. Smith shortly before the county was organized in 1836, named for legislator James H. Audrain, and settled mainly by Southerners. The first permanent settlement in the area was made in 1816, and pioneers searching for horses stolen by a band of Potawatomies were attacked at nearby Skull Lick in 1810, where William T. Cole was among those killed; his wife, Hannah, later became the first settler at Boonville in Cooper County. Sometimes called Salt River Tigers after the South Fork of Salt River, local settlers lived in a fertile grain and livestock region that later became a commercial and industrial hub served by three railroads. Mexico became internationally known for its firebrick industry because of some of the largest and purest fireclay deposits known, with refractories also at Vandalia and Farber, and it was also the site of a huge soybean storage and processing plant. The city was famed for saddle horses and harness racing: Rex McDonald, foaled at nearby Auxvasse in 1890 and buried at the fairgrounds in Mexico, became one of the world's greatest saddle horses and influenced the development of the American Saddle Horse; famed Negro trainer Tom Bass lived and trained here, including champion high schooled mare Belle Beach; Mexico claimed the first 1,500 dollar saddle horse show ring and the first 1,000 dollar trotting and pacing stakes, and it was early a harness racing center. During the Civil War, Mexico, mainly Southern in sympathy, was early occupied by Union troops, and U.S. Grant, while stationed there in July 1861, learned of his commission as a general. Educational institutions included Hardin College for women, established by Charles H. Hardin and operating from 1873 to 1932 with roots in an 1858 female academy, and the Missouri Military Academy, founded in 1889 under Hardin's leadership.