Ellsinore, Missouri
Ellsinore is a city in eastern Carter County, Missouri. It had a population of 446 at the 2010 census.
History
The land on which the community of Ellsinore would develop passed through several hands during the 19th century and was mostly used for farmland. In 1888, the then-owner, Charles Hearin, sold a right-of-way to the Cape Girardeau and Southwestern Railroad, a new local rail line being constructed to harvest timber from the virgin pine forests of Carter County and neighboring areas; immediately after this, Hearin began laying out a town along the railroad. A store was opened that same year, followed by a post office in 1889. The origin of the name "Ellsinore" is not certain, but the most common and plausible story is that the railroad's engineer, Major Brooks, named it for Elsinore Castle in Denmark, the setting of Shakespeare's ''Hamlet''.[1]