A look back:

Osage hunting grounds evolved into diverse mix of farmland, government, commerce

The Osage hunting grounds evolved into a diverse mix of farmland, government and commerce known as Cole County.

Cole County has grown from the Osage hunting grounds to southern farming expansion to a diverse mix of agriculture, government and commercial ventures.

When Missouri organized as a territory, what is Cole County today was part of St. Louis County in 1812. It was part of Howard County in 1815 then Cooper County in 1818.

Cole County, in a larger form, was carved Nov. 16, 1820. Parts were lost to Miller County in 1837 and Moniteau in 1845, creating the 262,400-acre county we have today.

Although it is named for Santa Fe Trail-trader Stephen Cole, who erected Cole’s Fort where Boonville is today during the War of 1812, no account suggests he was ever in the area.

By river, Cole County is 1,200 miles from New Orleans and 120 miles from the confluence with the Mississippi River.

The first known settlement was selected near the Moniteau River and named for Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion, “the Swamp Fox.” Marion was the first county seat and the first road request was from there to Boonville.

In 1823, James Hayter completed the first county courthouse — three rooms with a brick floor — in Marion, where the county’s first school met. Despite adding the first jail in 1823 — replacing a hole in the ground accessed only by a lowered ladder, Marion lost the county seat in 1829 in favor of Jefferson City.

A steep limestone bluff overlooking the Missouri River, with few land claims and within 40 miles of the mouth of the Osage River, was designated to become the Capitol. When the first lots were laid out in 1822, only two men lived on the site. And by 1826, the population only had grown to about two dozen men.

The City of Jefferson was incorporated in 1825, but city government was not established until 1839, under the first mayor, Thomas Lawson Price. The next year, with the first Capitol completed on the site of today’s Governor’s Mansion, the legislature held its first biennial term in the rough village, where some hotels were no more than rows of tents.

The state offered use of the Capitol to the relocated county government before it rented the old post office.

The second courthouse was completed by James Dunnica and Thomas Ferguson in time for the county to return the favor of use to the General Assembly in 1837, following the first Capitol fire. The two-story stone building, featured a courtroom seating 500.

The present courthouse, completed in 1896, included some cotton rock from its predecessor and was rebuilt following a fire in 1918. The Senate held proceedings there in 1911, following the second Capitol fire.

The third Cole County Jail built by 1841 at the southeast corner of McCarty and Monroe streets, was two-story stone with four rooms. The two-story limestone Romanesque Revival-style sheriff’s house and jail were added to the courthouse in 1936. And the fourth and present jail opened in 2011.

Most of the early pioneers to the county were southern farmers looking for virgin soil. But mining also drew men of enterprise. Coal, both bituminous and cannel, was found in the areas of Elston, Russellville and Hickory Hill. Copper and iron were found near the Osage River.

Lead mining created the town of Chouteau on the Osage River, but the residents were driven away by mosquito swarms. But the county’s largest lead mine was near Russellville.

The county’s first grist mill was built about 1836 at the Greenberry Ford on the Moreau. The first mill in the city was built in 1852 on Jefferson Street and later was moved by Gerhart Dulle to West Main Street.

Three communities were named for battles where local soldiers fought during the 1846 Mexican War — Brazito, Taos and Sacramento.

The village of Haarville, founded by 40 German families in 1838, became Taos. Jesuit Missionary Ferdinand Helias built in 1840 a small stone church for St. Francis Xavier, which became the center of his Central Missouri missions. It also was a small Belgian settlement.

Russellville was surveyed in 1838, after a broken wagon wheel in 1830 convinced Lamon Short and Enoch Enloe to stay in the area rather continuing west. With a large family, the brothers-in-law soon built up a mill, blacksmith shop, mercantile, post office and a stop on the Atlantic-Pacific trail. The town named for Buckner Russell was not easily accessible until the railroad crossed the Moreau River in 1881. It incorporated in 1895 with a weekly newspaper, a bank, several businesses, an opulent hotel and a population around 400.

Although what became the Bagnell Branch railroad from Jefferson City to Miller County helped build other Cole County communities, like Scruggs Station and Lohman, within its first year the line was the site of one of the county’s worst tragedies.

Several businessmen and community leaders from Jefferson City, rode on an open car hauling materials for the railroad’s continuation. On the return trip, with the engine in reverse with no means to turn around, the train derailed just outside Russellville and plummeted down an embankment. Among the fatalities was farmer and bank director

Green C. Berry, who had served the county as collector and sheriff.

Before the Bagnell Branch, the Missouri Pacific Railroad jump-started several Cole County towns when it arrived in 1855-56. Point Lookout, organized in 1848, became Centertown when the railroad built on Judge W.S. Freshour’s land, where he opened a store and the site was called Centertown. At his death in 1897, he was the county’s wealthiest citizen.

Ewing’s Station, later Algoa Railroad Switch, was three miles west of Osage City. Teal was named by mill owner George Turner, who was fond of hunting teal ducks.

Although the first church building, Sardis, was built in the 1820s near Elston, the town was not surveyed until 1867. It is named for A.M. Elston, who was commissioned Cole County justice of the peace in 1832 and became the longest-serving justice in the state.

Lohman was plotted about 1884, after most of the town of Stringtown, formed in 1851 by two country stores one mile apart, relocated closer to the railroad.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Rock Island Railroad line produced Henley and Eugene, also named for their property owners.

Hickory Hill was the fourth community in 1839, plotted in 1867 for John Lumpkin on land covered with small hickory trees. St. Thomas was settled in 1855 and Dixonville in 1860.

Belleville grew southwest of Russellville, between the Springfield and Versailles stage roads. Scruggs Station was built in 1882 and Osage Bluff began in 1885.

McKinney, Bass and Scrivner were named for their landowners. Scott’s Station was for the former Supreme Court judge who lived there, and Moreau adopted its name from the local creek named “extremely black” by French explorers. Wardsville started on Junius Ward’s land.

Decatur was named for Capt. Stephen Decatur, who stopped Barbary pirate raids on U.S. merchant ships in the Mediterranean.

John Scheperle operated a flour mill on a small stream called Millbrook. Osage Bend’s nickname was “Tintown.” Schubert’s namesake operated a store, post office and blacksmith shop. And Twiest was a general store.

Michelle Brooks is a former award-winning reporter for the Jefferson City News Tribune. She enjoys telling the stories of the city’s past.