SkipCaptcha, Automoderated users, edit
1,631
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 2:
Line 2: + + + + + + + +
Oregon County, Missouri (view source)
Revision as of 04:16, December 22, 2020
, 04:16, December 22, 2020Added to page
Officially organized on February 14, 1845, the county was named for the then-disputed American territory of [[Oregon]], and is one of only three Missouri counties to share a name with another U.S. state (the others being Texas and [[Mississippi County, Missouri|Mississippi]]). [[Alton, Missouri|Alton]] is the county seat, and [[Thayer, Missouri|Thayer]] is the largest city.
Officially organized on February 14, 1845, the county was named for the then-disputed American territory of [[Oregon]], and is one of only three Missouri counties to share a name with another U.S. state (the others being Texas and [[Mississippi County, Missouri|Mississippi]]). [[Alton, Missouri|Alton]] is the county seat, and [[Thayer, Missouri|Thayer]] is the largest city.
==History==
Although it is not entirely clear when the first American settlers reached present-day Oregon County, a few families of pioneers had definitely arrived by the late 1810s, establishing a loosely-knit community along the Eleven Point River in the vicinity of modern Thomasville. Others followed in the 1820s and '30s, mostly from the states of the Upper South; as the region was rather isolated from major transportation routes, though, its population growth was relatively slow, and by the mid-1840s had not much more than 750 residents altogether.
In spite of its low population, however, the region was detached from neighboring Ripley County in 1845 and organized as Oregon County. Its name, as well as its early creation in all likelihood, stemmed from the widespread interest in the Oregon Territory in the Pacific Northwest, which both [[Great Britain]] and the U.S. claimed at that time, and some American expansionists were demanding war to gain possession of the whole territory. (The issue would eventually be settled the following year with a division of Oregon between the two nations.)<ref>https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C2366/oregon-county</ref>
The county grew more rapidly after its organization, reaching a population of about 3,000 in 1860; like much of Missouri, though, it suffered significant devastation during the [[Civil War]], in which the courthouse was destroyed and civilians were at the mercy of [[Union]] and [[Confederate]] [[guerrilla warfare|guerrillas]]. One notable event during the war was the destruction of a community of Irish Catholic settlers from [[St. Louis]], founded in the late 1850s; by late 1863, harassment by Union army officers as well as guerrillas and criminal gangs led to the settlement being abandoned--ever since then, the area has been known as the "Irish Wilderness."<ref>Mike Crawford, Father Hogan’s 1859 Irish Wilderness Settlement (Doniphan, Missouri: The Prospect-News)</ref>
==Geography==
==Geography==