THE

HISTORY OF SEDALIA.

CHAPTER I.-INTRODUCTION.

A Picture of Sedalia as it is To-day--Her People, her Business and her Surroundings-The Location of the City and its Connection with Others--Why, How, When and by Whom the City was Founded--The Three Periods into which its History is Divided--What the Site of the Town was Twenty Years Ago--Who Lived in it-When the First Plat of the Town was filed-Why it was put in its Present Location, and not on the Site of Georgetown.

"Facts are stubborn things, and seeing is believing." When a stranger arrives at the depot in Sedalia, in 1882, and for the first time, what solid fact does he see? He sees a great fact, a fact which requires no logic or argument to convince him that it is, because he sees it with the eye of his mind and with his natural eyes. And what is still stranger, this great fact is comparatively a new one; and what is the stubborn fact that he sees?

A splendid city covering an area of two miles square, of beautiful, rolling prairie land; and containing fifteen thousand inhabitants, and all the adjuncts of a first class modern civilization.

Sedalia stands to-day the recognized head and head-center of Central Missouri, a region forming a circle of country one hundred miles in diameter, in the fifth State in the Union. Sedalia is a railroad, business, finan

cial, political and intellectual center.

This is a proud eminence to occupy, and to hold it justly by its own intrinsic merits, is a proud pre-eminence. The commercial traveler from the great metropolis in the more enlightened and longer settled east; the capitalist seeking new and good fields for investment; the newspaper man, the railroad official, the advertising agent, the heads of institutions. of learning and great manufacturing and jobbing establishments, the well informed men in this and surrounding States, each and all of these know that Sedalia is a central city, ahead of or above all other towns within one hundred miles of her, in the general intelligence and business energy of her people, in the possession of material wealth—such as fine, broad, paved streets, substantial two and three story brick business houses and dwellings, churches, schools, convents, daily newspapers, hospital, railroads, telegraph wires, telephones, gas works, water works, fire depart

ment, hotels, parks, and the numberless other elements included under the term "Modern improvements." Sedalia has made her mark upon the world's record already, and she has made a mark so plain that the thousands can see it.

The city is a business center because it is a railroad center, having railroads in all directions except due north, where one is surveyed. It is a political center because it contains three dailies, the only daily newspapers of strength and prominence in Central Missouri. In addition it has in the past ten years furnished a United States Senator, a Congressman, a candidate for Governor and a candidate for Lieutenant Governor. These and the newspapers have been the guides and moulders of public. opinion in politics.

It is an intellectual center, because the active lives of its people, the presence of daily newspapers, the sharpness of competition in business, the growing condition of the town, produce an attrition which keeps men alive to all the present, and develops the intellect by pushing men to intellectual effort.

It is a financial center because it contains the most wealth in banks, in wholesale houses, in railroad machine shops, and in private manufactories.

Real estate is worth more in Sedalia to-day, and brings in a better interest than in any city within one hundred miles of it, in any direction; capital invested in any branch of business brings in quicker, surer and larger profits; the population is steadily on the increase and the work of building up and enlarging the town with more buildings, streets, public buildings, manufactories and educational institutions is still going on with unabated vigor. The growth of the city up to the year 1870, has been the growth of a frontier town. Much energy was misdirected and misspent, plans were laid in haste, and hastily carried out; but now the work of causing the town to grow is different; people are wiser, they mature their plans more slowly; they see the mistakes of the past, and are prepared to avoid them, and all that is now done, in the way of street, sewer, water pipe, and similar improvements, in buildings and the formation of public organizations, is done carefully, solidly, and with intelligence and liberality.

Not only is the city strong and progressive, but the portion of the country within twenty miles of it, in all directions, has been imbued with the same strength and the same progressive spirit. Thriving villages which contribute directly to its business and augment its prosperity, are established all around it. Six and twelve miles to the west, Dresden and Lamonte, two thriving towns, the latter incorporated; to the north are Hughesville and Houstonia. Greenridge, now an incorporated town, is only twelve miles southwest.

Beaman is seven miles northeast, and Smithton, an incor

porated town, with all the essentials of a town, is located eight miles east. Cole Camp is about twenty miles due south. All these towns are located on the lines of railroad mentioned heretofore in connection with Sedalia, and she draws vitality from them just as the radiating roots of a tree draw strength, sustenance and moisture from the earth all around it. The farming country around the city is unsurpassed in the State for the fertility of the soil, the variety and value of its products, and is now cultivated with much care, highly improved, covered with the best and largest farm houses, inhabited by an intelligent, moral and law-abiding people, and filled with the best qualities of live stock of all kinds. In addition to all this, coal, one of the great essentials for carrying on the business of the world to-day, is brought to the city by all the railroads that center in it, and with the exception of that brought from the Indian Territory, it is dug from the earth of Central Missouri, in localities from twelve to fifty miles from the city.

Since the Christian era at least it has been necessary for the historian, in writing the histories of cities, to rely for his information upon the floating fables and legends current among the people, or upon the musty records to be found in the libraries of old convents, churches, government archives and such receptacles; and upon documents, for the most part written in languages known only to the learned. But here is a city, Sedalia, which already has a significant history, and a population as large as that of some of the famed cities of the Greek or Roman empires, and its history could be written, if sufficient time were given to the work, from information furnished by hundreds of persons still living, who have seen the town from the day of its foundation up to the present time. Though but sixteen or eighteen years have passed since the city assumed the real character of a town, the years have been full of events and the foundation, progress and present size and prosperity of the city constitute one of the marvels of modern civilization.

If the historian lays aside all disposition to exaggerate or elaborate he still finds enough simple, solid facts regarding its growth, cognizant to hundreds still in the prime of life, to excite his admiration and wonder; and facts to instruct the people of the present day and to encourage them to labor for the permanency of republican institutions, the support of education and the practice of industry, justice, and morality.

Sedalia is now a city so well-known abroad and at home, so well established in character, growing so surely and swiftly, having now all the conditions and concomitants which guarantee that she will be a city of 30,000 people within the next ten years, that those who write in praise of the city can no longer be justly charged with exaggeration or misrepresentation.

It must be distinctly borne in mind that it is not the purpose of this article to give a full, elaborate and detailed account of the birth, growth and present condition of the place, like the minute biography of a noted individual. The historian has but a limited time to devote to it, and must give only a comprehensive view or outline of its history, telling what it was before the war, during the war, and subsequent to the war; giving the dates only of the most important events, accounts of significant facts; and episodes and narratives to show the character of the people and the conditions of society, together with such general and comparative facts, figures and statistical information, as will show the immense amounts of money and labor spent in permanent improvements from time to time; the increase in population and business; the birth and growth of the railroad system of which Sedalia is the center; a statement of the amount and character of our manufactories, and give the list of names of early settlers; also an account of the origin of a number of important public and private enterprises, and the founding of churches, schools and societies.

There is always a reason or a cause for the foundation of cities, and often both a reason and a cause. In the case of Sedalia there was a reason and a cause for its foundation, and for its location, on its present site, three miles south of Georgetown, the former county seat of Pettis County.

George R. Smith, the founder of Sedalia, and the man who cherished and aided the infant town until it was strong enough to fight for itself, was a man of fine natural intellect and a magnificent foresight. This enabled him to tower above his fellows and see objects away off in the horizon beyond their power of sight. He saw the great tide of civilization rolling westward. The railroad was coming from the Mississippi River. The railroad carries civilization with it. He saw civilization as typified by the railroad, creeping up along the Missouri River towards Central Missouri. He wanted to divert it from the Missouri River and bring it through Central Missouri. He said to the people of this section, in the years that he saw the railroad coming: "Open your eyes and see the friend that is coming to aid you; hold out your hands and welcome it, give of your means to quicken its movements towards you." He worked and argued and pleaded with the people of Georgetown to strive for the prize, and have the road pass through their town. They could not see it coming; they could not see the advantages to be derived if it did come; they closed their ears and their eyes and sat still. He told them at one of the last railroad meetings held in the old Court House at Georgetown, that he would live to see the day when the bats and the owls would make their home in the Court House, while a flourishing town would be growing at their suburbs. His farm constituted the present site of Sedalia. He laid out a town upon it. He went to work to help himself, and left the people of Georgetown in their blindness and stupor; he labored to have

the railroad run through the center of his own farm and his own town, and he got it there, and the very results followed, that for years he had seen would follow, and must follow according to the laws which govern modern civilization.

"To boil it all down; to give it in a nut shell," because one man was wise and energetic and a dozen others were weak and idle, a beautiful city of 15,000 people grew upon a flower decked prairie in twenty years, while a town which had been founded for twenty-three years and had been flourishing for eighteen years, sank into insignificance and ruin right at its side. In this connection it may be of interest to mention the fact that General Smith's prophecy concerning the "bats and the owls making their homes in the Court House at Georgetown," he lived to see literally fulfilled, for about one year before his death, after the building had been abandoned for years, it was almost alive with bats, owls and whippoorwills from the dense and silent forests in the near vicinity.

The reader has been shown what Sedalia is to-day, after a life of twentyone years. The cause and the reason of its foundation and of its foundation in its present location, have been briefly presented. To complete the picture it is necessary to tell where and how it is located.

Sedalia is the county seat of Pettis County, almost the central county of Missouri, which is the fifth State in the Union, in population, wealth and progress. The county has an area of 672 square miles, and contains 446,289 acres.

The county was first settled in 1822, and it now contains 35,000 inhabitants.

The Missouri Pacific Railroad, main line, runs through it from east to west. This main line runs a distance of about 300 miles, between St. Louis and the Mississippi River on the east, and Kansas City and the Missouri River, on the west; Sedalia to Kansas City, 96 miles; Sedalia to St. Louis, 189.

The Kansas & Texas Division of the Gould combination, formerly the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, runs through it from northeast to southwest, from Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi River, to Denison, in Northern Texas, a distance of 576 miles. From Sedalia to Hannibal the distance is 143 miles; from Sedalia to Denison, 433 miles. The Lexington Branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad runs from the southeast to the northwest, from Sedalia to Lexington, Mo., on the Missouri River, a distance of fifty-two miles. The Sedalia, Warsaw and Southern Division (narrow gauge railway) of the Missouri Pacific Railroad runs due south from Sedalia to Warsaw, Mo., on the Osage River, a distance of about forty-five miles.

The site of the city is a high, rolling prairie, and the area covered by it at present is about two miles square. The water runs from it in all direc