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Mississippi County Historical Marker (Reverse side)

Location of sign - Off Missouri Highway 25 in Charleston, Missouri

Photo taken April 2008

Photo courtesy of Jimmy Wayne

Text of sign:

Mississippi County

(continued from other side)

In Mississippi county is historic Belmont Battlefield.  There on Nov. 7 1861, Gen U.S. Grant with 3114 troops saved the forces

of Col. R.J. Oglesby from possible capture by engaging 2500 Confederates under Gen G.J. Pillow in a 6-hour battle.  Union

losses were 485; Confederates, who held Belmont lost 641.  A chain was put across the river from Confed. held Columbus, Ky.,

to Belmont in a futile effort to halt Union gunboats.  Part of the chain is in Columbus-Belmont Battlefield State Park, Ky. From

1861-65 the county suffered continued war activity.

Among towns founded after the war, is East Prairie, laid out in 1883 as Hibbard.  Today's 2 branches of the Mo. Pac. R.R. date

from 1869, the St. Louis Southwestern from late 1890's.  In the 1880's large lumber companies came to harvest the fine forests.

First levees were built in the 1890's.

Big Oak Tree State Park, opened in the county, 1937, is a 1007-acre botanical garden with some of the largest oak trees in the

U.S.  In the county was born the archeologist Thomas Beckwith (1840-1913) and it was the home of writer Thad Snow (1881-

1955).

 
Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission 1959

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