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Dent County, Missouri (view source)
Revision as of 00:24, January 26, 2021
, 00:24, January 26, 2021Added to page
'''Dent County''' is a county in the Ozarks of southern [[Missouri]]. Officially organized on February 10, 1851, it was named for Lewis Dent, a pioneer to and state representative from the region. At the 2010 census, the county had a population of 15,657. [[Salem, Missouri|Salem]] is the county seat and the largest city.
'''Dent County''' is a county in the Ozarks of southern [[Missouri]]. Officially organized on February 10, 1851, it was named for Lewis Dent, a pioneer to and state representative from the region. At the 2010 census, the county had a population of 15,657. [[Salem, Missouri|Salem]] is the county seat and the largest city.
==History==
The Dent County area was first explored by the American geographer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who in 1818 conducted a small expedition from [[Potosi, Missouri]] to the vicinity of present-day [[Springfield, Missouri|Springfield]], during which he passed along the upper reaches of the Current River in what are now Dent and [[Shannon County, Missouri|Shannon]] Counties. As far as is known, the first settler in the region was George Cole, who cleared a farm along the Meramec River in 1828 on the site of the later settlement of Stone Hill. Most early settlement was likewise along the Meramec or two small nearby tributaries, Spring Creek and Dry Fork. Some members of the [[Cherokee]] tribe stayed in the area as well, during and after the [[Trail of Tears]] in the late 1830s.
In 1851, the Missouri legislature created a new county from territory formerly belonging to Crawford and Shannon Counties. It was named for Lewis Dent, who had moved there from [[Virginia]] around 1835 and who served as a state representative from the area. Officials for the new county originally met at a farmhouse belonging to the Bressie family, but the town of Salem was made the permanent county seat shortly after its settlement in 1852. As was the case in much of Missouri, the local courthouse was burned during the [[Civil War]]; a replacement, built in the Victorian style, was completed in 1870 and is now on the National Register of Historic Places.<ref>https://collections.shsmo.org/manuscripts/columbia/C2366/dent-county</ref>
Dent County had significant deposits of iron ore, and after the opening of a major blast furnace at Sligo in 1880, its economy boomed; for a time, it was producing as much as 100 tons of pig iron a day, while the cutting and processing of the Ozark forests of pine and oak made it a leading supplier of railroad ties, barrels, and other lumber-related goods. These and other industries declined after the early 20th century, but the county suffered less in its economy and its population levels than some of its neighbors. Its banks remained stable during the [[Great Depression]], unlike many others, and it was home to a number of clothing factories in the decades after [[World War II]]. Today, the production of machinery related to food delivery is the most important activity in the county.
In recent years, Dent County attracted national attention on two occasions: first, in 2012-13, concerning accusations of abuse of a dog impounded by the city of Salem;<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20130614040847/http://www.thesalemnewsonline.com/news/local_news/article_820cbebe-bcad-11e2-b5da-001a4bcf6878.html</ref> and again in July 2015, when the county commissioners voted unanimously to lower all flags to half staff on the 26th of every month for a year, to protest the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]]'s imposing of gay marriage on the country, though they later reversed this decision.<ref>https://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/missouri-county-to-fly-flags-at-half-mast-to-mourn-supreme-courts-despicable-marriage-ruling/</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Missouri]]
[[Category:Missouri]]
[[Category:Counties]]
[[Category:Counties]]