Hermann Hearsay has decided too add a new feature to our content. Ron Meyer, one our loyal readers from Owensville, has suggested that we write articles about local history. We respect Ron's opinion and his suggestion for improving our site's content, so we're going to give it a try! Approximately once per week (when other news is slow) we will insert an article about Gasconade County history. Our first article in our county history series and an article in honor of Ron Meyer is "The City of Owensville".
The following historical account of "The City of Owensville" was found at:
www.owensville.k12.mo.us/
Few written records of early Owensville history are to be found.
Quickly apparent when researching Owensville’s history are huge gaps in authentic written narratives of the city’s past ... especially during the last half of the 19th century.
The meager historical resources that are available sometimes contradict other each other, or lack the verifying chronicles and footnotes that lend prestige to historical tomes.
Nonetheless, a reasonably accurate history of the city’s first sixty (60) years can be pieced together, if allowances are made that some accounts may be conjecture or products of local legends that, with repeated telling over the years, were slightly to moderately embellished.
Settlers from Tennessee and Kentucky were moving into this area in the 1830s when Gasconade County still covered territory that is now Osage, Maries, Phelps and Crawford counties. Among those early settlers were William Steen, Col. Fred Douglas, Col. Dudley Farris, Joseph Hawkins, James A. Matthews, James Brown, Isaac Smith, Edward Luster, Frank Owen and Samuel Burchard.
“In those early days the country was wild and for the most part unsettled, abounding in game such as deer and turkey and even a few bears,” said L.A. Nowack, an editor of the Argus. “The settlers lived on game and what they could raise. They made manual trips to St. Louis, then a flourishing city, to obtain flour, leather, powder, sugar, tea, rice, coffee and tobacco.
The first settler on ground that is now part of Owensville was believed to be Uriah Shockley, who filed for a land patent in 1838. He soon abandoned his claim to Burchard, who in turn sold it to Douglas. The prairie that stretched west of the future city was named after Douglas.
Two years later, a general store, blacksmith shop and a few other buildings sprang up where the St. Louis-to-Springfield trail crossed the double road from Maramec Iron Works near St. James to Hermann’s river port.
Most accounts agree that the history horseshoe pitching match between Owen, who had opened the general store, and Luster, who started the blacksmiths shop, happened in 1847. Based on those chronicles, the city is celebrating the sesquicentennial of its naming this year (1997).
There is a conflicting historical account at this point, however. One source, which could not be verified, put the game of horseshoes two years earlier. Another had Owen and Luster in slightly different roles.
“The place was named after a Mr. Owens (sic), the first settler here, who is partnership was E. Luster started the first store,” according to a history of Franklin and Gasconade counties published in 1888. “A. W. Moore was the first druggist; Louis Kuhne, the first grocery keeper; B. Leach was the first, and George H. Buschmann is the present (1888) postmaster. The present population of the town is about 100.”
A special May 5, 1905, supplement to The Owensville Argus ( see history of Owensville newspapers elsewhere) also misspelled the town’s namesakes as Owens instead of Owen, but verified the 1847 horseshoe pitching match to name the town. But that account said Owen was the winner, not Luster, hence it became Owensville instead of Lusterville.
Not much happened in the next few years, but the first railroad survey through the area in 1853 caused considerable excitement and dreams for the little hamlet’s future among its inhabitants. Those dreams quickly later with definite plans to continue westward. In 1887 George H. Buschmann, who had earlier moved to Owensville from Bay and bought the store that Luster took over from Owen, also bought party of Luster’s farm.
Five or six years later, with news that the railroad was coming confirmed, Buschmann organized the Owensville Improvement Co. The company bought the rest of Luster’s farm, 280 acres, in the northeast quarter of Section 29 from Luster.
The ground was south of the St. Louis, Kansas City & Colorado survey between First and Seventh Streets, and north of Jackson Avenue. For real estate purposes, it is still shown as the Original City of Owensville.
Anticipating a boom with the arrival of the railroad, Owensville got its first newspaper of record in 1896 when The Owensville Republican began publishing on a weekly basis. Those early issues, however, provided scant local new coverage.
The front page of the Oct. 22, 1896, 'Republican', for example carried nothing but seven single columns of national and international datelines, with some state news thrown in “Local Happenings” reported births, deaths, marriages and visitors.
“Owensville is alive with business. We infer from this that people believe the world will continue to roll on no matter how the election goes,” was the only reference to town’s condition two weeks before the 1896 presidential election.
Advertisements in those early issues let historians know who was in business then. Buschmann advertised his store as a “dealer of dry goods, boots and shoes, hats and caps, hardware, tin ware, saddlery, notions and stationary. School books a specialty. Always highest market prices for country produce.”
E. H. AufderHeide, then in Belle and Bland, advertised many of the same items Buschmann did, but added ready made clothing and farm implements. Mellies and Tappmeyer also advertised as sellers of general merchandise.
Physicians practicing in the area then included Dr. F. F. Ferrell, Owensville; Dr. Edward Mellies, Woollam; Dr. H. G. Isenberg, Drake; and Dr. T. E. Ferrell, Tea.
In November 1900, Owensville was officially incorporated as a village board of trustees. The railroad arrived the following years, bringing with it the boom that local boosters had expected.
“In 1894, Owensville was a mere hamlet small, insignificant and unpromising, just a store, post office, blacksmith shop, a private high school and a few houses,” a early newspaper editor said. “In 1901 the railroad came and Owensville became a thriving village, which has enjoyed a steady, substantial growth.”
The railroad though Owensville became the property of the Rock Island System two years later. By 1905, Owensville’s population has soared to more than 600. The railroad was doing a thriving business hauling agricultural products, clay and corn cob pipes to eastern markets.
By 1905, the little village has six general stores, one grocery store, two furniture stores, two millinery stores, two newspapers, two banks, a hardware store, four implement houses, two mills, two blacksmith shops, a wagon maker, a lumber yard, two butcher shops, two saloons, a tailor, four doctors, two attorneys, a dentist, one photographer, a jewelry store, an elevator, a granary, a cob pipe factory, a flue stop factory, a canning factory, two livery stables, a hotel, a show repair shop, four churches, a private high school and public grade school.
“The town is also well supplies with carpenters, painters, mechanics, stock buyers and draymen,” according to the May 5, 1905, Argus.
Harrison Gibson was chairman of the village board of trustees; J.W. Zykan served as vice chairman. Also on the board in 1905 were Fred Berger, Herman Hengstenberg and Fritz Lueke. E.P. Francis served as city treasurer; Simon Schmidt was marshal; William A. Helm held the post of street commissioner; and W.O. Boyd was appointed city clerk.
A year later, Peter Helling and his son Simon built the first electric light plant in Owensville. Simon Helling later sold the plant to Gasconade Power Co. which at one time provided electricity to Owensville and 13 nearby communities.
One of Thomas Edison’s inventions the telephone, arrived in 1896-97, a maze of privately owned and separate lines between, Drake, Bland, Red Bird, and Hermann. In 1902, F.T. Williams, a postal telegraph operator at Drake for 15 years, saw the advantage of connecting the tines and operating them under one system.
He rented all the exiting lines, combined them into a central office and called it the Drake Telephone System. He also installed exchanges in Owensville and Hermann. There were 25 telephones in Owensville in 1907, served by the Drake Telephone System.
Sixty years after the dusty little crossroads hamlet was named by the outcome of a horseshoe pitching match, its residents were beginning to enjoy prosperity and the availability of modern (1907) conveniences.
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