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The first settlement in the area was made by the Carter family, which moved to Missouri from [[South Carolina]] in 1807, initially settling in the Missouri River valley before relocating to a spot near the Current River and about eight miles southeast of present-day Van Buren, sometime between 1812 and 1820. These moves were undertaken by Benjamin Carter; however, he was soon joined by his son Zimri, who had previously spent time in the flatboat trade on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Zimri Carter soon became the leading figure in the area, attracting other settler families and later serving as a county judge.<ref>Robert Sidney Douglass, ''History of Southeast Missouri'' (1912), p. 180, 317.</ref>
The first settlement in the area was made by the Carter family, which moved to Missouri from [[South Carolina]] in 1807, initially settling in the Missouri River valley before relocating to a spot near the Current River and about eight miles southeast of present-day Van Buren, sometime between 1812 and 1820. These moves were undertaken by Benjamin Carter; however, he was soon joined by his son Zimri, who had previously spent time in the flatboat trade on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Zimri Carter soon became the leading figure in the area, attracting other settler families and later serving as a county judge.<ref>Robert Sidney Douglass, ''History of Southeast Missouri'' (1912), p. 180, 317.</ref>
At this time, the region was part of [[Wayne County, Missouri|Wayne County]], which then encompassed a large section of southern Missouri. In 1833, it and neighboring territory were separated to form the new [[Ripley County, Missouri|Ripley County]]; that same year, the town of Van Buren was founded to serve as the county seat, with a log-cabin courthouse being constructed in 1853 (replaced by a wood-frame building in 1867). In 1859, as its population had increased significantly, the northern portion of Ripley County was split off by the state legislature to form a new county, named for leading citizen Zimri Carter. Van Buren continued to serve as the county seat for the district, to which adjoining portions of Shannon and Wayne Counties were also added.<ref>https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C2366/carter-county</ref>
At this time, the region was part of [[Wayne County, Missouri|Wayne County]], which then encompassed a large section of southern Missouri. In 1833, it and neighboring territory were separated to form the new [[Ripley County, Missouri|Ripley County]]; that same year, the town of Van Buren was founded to serve as the county seat, with a log-cabin courthouse being constructed in 1853 (replaced by a wood-frame building in 1867). In 1859, as its population had increased significantly, the northern portion of Ripley County was split off by the state legislature to form a new county, named for leading citizen Zimri Carter. Van Buren continued to serve as the county seat for the district, to which adjoining portions of Shannon and Wayne Counties were also added.<ref>https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C2366/carter-county</ref> The new county still had a very low population; at the 1860 Census, it had just 1,235 persons, including 20 slaves.
Like most of southern Missouri, Carter County was torn by the [[Civil War]], in which most of the residents appear to have sympathized with the South. Owing to its relative isolation and rugged terrain, no significant battles were fought within the county, though sizable [[Union]] and [[Confederate]] units did march through the area from time to time, and a few skirmishes did occur, especially in 1862-63 when a Union force was encamped in and around Van Buren. Most of the violence came from local guerrilla bands that feuded with the others and their sympathizers. Some freed or escaped slaves from across the region appear to have formed a community of sorts near the Current River, called "Carterville"; however, it only lasted a few months.
Post-war economic recovery was spurred by the timber boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as a number of businesses sought to make large profits from the vast virgin pine forests that still blanketed the county. The boom began in the late 1880s, when the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company extended a branch of the St. Louis-San Francisco ("Frisco") Railway to the new town of Grandin in the far south. Massive sawmills in and around Grandin produced, at their peak, some 60 to 70 million board feet of lumber every year, from trees felled in Carter and neighboring counties. In 1917, meanwhile, even as the timber boom was passing its peak, the Mid-Continent Iron Company provided another economic boost, opening a smelter on land north of Fremont to process iron ore shipped from [[Michigan]]. A large town called Midco sprang up on the site, with a population as high as 3,000 at one point, finding work in the smelter as well as in a short-lived chemical plant to supply the U.S. Army during [[World War I]]. These enterprises made Carter County an economic hub for a time, and many flocked to the area for employment; it hit an all-time population high of 7,482 in the 1920 census.<ref>Dr. Gene Oakley, "A History of Carter County, Sesquicentennial Edition" (2007), p. 128-136.</ref>
==References==
==References==