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'''Farmington''' is the county seat and largest city of [[St. Francois County, Missouri|St. Francois County]], [[Missouri]]. With a population of 16,240 at the 2010 census, it is the fourth-largest city in southeast Missouri, behind [[Cape Girardeau, Missouri|Cape Girardeau]], [[Poplar Bluff, Missouri|Poplar Bluff]], and [[Sikeston, Missouri|Sikeston]]. It is also the center of the Farmington Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes St. Francois and Washington Counties.
'''Farmington''' is the county seat and largest city of [[St. Francois County, Missouri|St. Francois County]], [[Missouri]]. With a population of 16,240 at the 2010 census, it is the fourth-largest city in southeast Missouri, behind [[Cape Girardeau, Missouri|Cape Girardeau]], [[Poplar Bluff, Missouri|Poplar Bluff]], and [[Sikeston, Missouri|Sikeston]]. It is also the center of the Farmington Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes St. Francois and Washington Counties.
==History==
Farmington was one of the first permanent settlements to be made in what became St. Francois County. In the late 1790s, the Spanish colonial authorities began awarding land grants to settlers in the Louisiana Territory, including to American pioneers pushing westwards. One of these was William Murphy, an Irish immigrant and a [[Baptist]] minister residing along the Holston River in east [[Tennessee]], who arrived in the territory in 1798 and obtained a plot in some rolling land near the St. Francois Mountains. Murphy sketched out a homestead before returning to Tennessee to gather his family; he fell ill and died while there, but his wife and sons traveled to the new spot nonetheless, along with other relations and dependents. By 1803, several interrelated families had arrived and formed a loose community, known as Murphy Settlement.<ref>Robert Sidney Douglass, ''History of Southeast Missouri'' (1912), p. 63, 277.</ref>
Murphy Settlement quickly became one of the more prominent frontier outposts, dominated from the start by the numerous Murphy clan. William Murphy's widow, Sarah, was said to have led the first [[Protestant]] Sunday school west of the [[Mississippi River]], and to have been active in the building of a log church at an early date; her sons, meanwhile, were widely known as large landowners and mainstays of local business and peacekeeping. Under their leadership, the community and the surrounding area steadily grew in population, and in late 1821 it was organized as St. Francois County. The need for selecting a county seat at once was apparent, and Murphy Settlement was a strong candidate, due to its relatively central location and its being in less mountainous terrain. One of William and Sarah Murphy's sons, David, donated 52 acres of land for the construction of a courthouse and other offices, and in 1822 the new county seat was surveyed and laid out. Initially it was dubbed St. Francois Court House, but by 1825 it had been renamed Farmington, presumably on account of the rich farmland nearby.<ref>https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C2366/st-francois-county</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Missouri Cities and Towns]]
[[Category:Missouri Cities and Towns]]