Author: Patrick Sullivan

Publisher:

Published: 2021-04-21

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13:

Entering a wilderness which had long served as home to native Americans, white settlers pushed into northwest Lincoln County, Missouri, in the early 1800s and began to build permanent homes there. This growing migration forced the native Americans to abandon the area and move west. As immigrants and migrants streamed westward, tiny new villages were formed. Then, the nation fell into a brutal Civil War. In Missouri, this often pitted white neighbor against white neighbor. Locals took sides, took oaths of loyalty or risked losing everything, including their lives. Bushwhackers caused havoc across the countryside. As the war came to a conclusion in 1865, great technological innovation and rapid migration caused Midwestern rural areas to flourish. Railroads expanded, creating economic winners and losers for small towns and their merchants. After the turn of the century, the determinaion to build hard roads along with the invention of the automobile caused commerce to shift to larger population centers. The changes caused the smaller communities to lose most of their commerce and professional services, except those related to agriculture. This book looks at this history through the evolution of rural communities in northwest Lincoln County, Missouri.