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Iron County, Missouri (view source)
Revision as of 17:27, September 9, 2020
, 17:27, September 9, 2020Added to page
Iron County is also home to some of Missouri's most striking geographic formations, including [[Taum Sauk Mountain]], the highest peak in the state.
Iron County is also home to some of Missouri's most striking geographic formations, including [[Taum Sauk Mountain]], the highest peak in the state.
==History==
Though some French and later American pioneers may have passed through the area during the 18th century, looking for such deposits of lead and other metals as had already been discovered just to the east, no permanent settlements existed in what became Iron County prior to the [[Louisiana Purchase]]; nonetheless, there was already reason to believe in its potential as a mining region. Beginning around 1805, a few frontiersmen established homesteads in the Arcadia and Bellevue Valleys in the northeast, and soon enough quantities of iron ore were discovered. Ashebran Furnace, said to be the first iron furnace and forge west of the state of [[Ohio]], was constructed around 1815 near present-day Ironton, and others followed in subsequent years. As a result of the prosperity brought by the mining and forging of iron, settlement of the area swiftly increased, especially in and around Arcadia Valley.<ref>https://collections.shsmo.org/index.php/manuscripts/columbia/C2366/iron-county</ref>
By the mid-1850s, the local population had reached sufficient numbers to justify the creation of a new county, which the Missouri legislature approved in 1857. However, as none of the surrounding counties were very populous themselves, only small portions of territory were detached from each, giving the new district a very irregular shape. Although the local deposits of iron ore were by no means so extensive as local boosters claimed, it was nonetheless dubbed "Iron County" in their honor. Arcadia was the first county seat, but that same year residents voted to transfer it to Ironton.<ref>Robert Sidney Douglass, ''History of Southeast Missouri'' (1912), p. 316-17.</ref>
==Geography==
==Geography==