A Brit came to Boonville in the Great Flood of 93. He liked the place and wondered how it all began. The legioned of Daniel Boone caught his imagination.

The beginnings could have been as illustrated in the picture. A frontiersman riding through Missouri. He would be riding with his Indian guide who would find a safe place to cross the Missouri River. A few days looking the land over could only lead to one conclusion  that it was a great place to live. Of course the Indian nations of the Sac and Fox had lived here for many awhile and already knew this.

A romantic view in the best traditions of a John Ford movie but the truth turns out to be a little different. The Boonville Chamber of Commerce web site put me straight. I learned of the 1876 book ' A History of Cooper County' by Henry C. Leven's and Nathaniel M. Drake. This book  tells a story of how Colonel B. Cooper led a group of setters called the Coles to the region which would become Boonville and Cooper County.

These were the first pioneers. There were two families. The widow called Hanna Cole, her nine children and her brother-in-law, Stephen, his wife Phobe and their 5 children. They found that the land was fertile and they built their farm.

The location was a good one because more setters came to Boonville. It  was in a good location for it was near to ancient trails. One of which would become famous as the  Santa Fa Trail and pioneers would follow it and open up of the West.

These were the times of George Graham Vest, David Barton. William Ash and George Caleb Bingham.

And as we say the rest is history.