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Chapter 10: The Founding of Poplar Bluff, Part Three |
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The third and final chapter in the founding of Poplar Bluff is the platting and naming of the town. The new town had to be under direct control of the County Court as there was nothing in a wilderness site to incorporate.
As soon as the County Court has assurance that a site had been selected, it went ahead with plans for a town, even though the deed had not been received. The Act of 1845 regulating the formation of the counties directed the County Court to appoint a County Seat Commissioner in case a new town had to be organized. Usually he was referred to as the "Town Commissioner." The Commissioner was to direct the platting of the town, advertise the sale of lots, give title to lots sold and look after the business of the new town as directed by the Court. He was to furnish a bond of $1500.00 for faithful performance of his duties.
On December 24, 1849, Obadiah Epps was appointed the first Town Commissioner. He resigned March 18, 1850, and migrated to Texas. On the same day the Court appointed John Eudaley to the position. Mr. Eudaley was to have great influence in the development of Butler County. Other positions and duties held or performed by him were county assessor, township school commissioner, school enumerator, election judge, road overseer, agent to bring money from Jefferson City and member of the County Court. His name appears as "a party of the first Part" in the transfer of title to town lots from Butler County to private ownership during the time he was Town Commissioner. He was then 39 years of age and was born in Virginia. His wife, Orlena, was 34 years old and was born in Tennessee. In 1850 there were six children at home ranging in age from three to fifteen years. Three of the children had been born in Tennessee and three in Missouri, indicating that the family had migrated to Missouri about 1840. By occupation, he was a farmer and lived in the northwest part of the County near Cane Creek about fifteen miles from Poplar Bluff.
The meeting of the County Court March 18, 1850, is very important in Butler county history as on this day the Court took official action to start a county seat town. Since the flavor of our American style English has changed after the passing of more than one hundred years, we quote directly some of these early orders of the Court. First, the Court arranged for a survey of the town site as follows, "Ordered that John Eudaley employ some competent person to survey and lay out County Seat of Butler according to a plat presented to the Court by John Stevenson." John Stevenson was President of the Court. This original plat has been lost. We cannot find the names of the surveyor in the records, so cannot recognize him for his part in our local history. The second step was to order a sale of town lots as follows, "Ordered that the Town Commissioner advertise the town lots for sale at Poplar Bluff on the seventeenth day of May, 1850, and that he advertise said sale as extensive as his means will admit of by post bills, and it is further ordered that no lots be sold for less than five dollars, and it is further ordered that the said lots be sold on a credit of twelve months." When the above orders were made the Court was in session at the house of Daniel Epps on the west side of Ten Mile Creek on the Old Military Road.
The town site was not platted "square with the world." The north-south streets then as today, slant northeast and southwest such that they are parallel to Black River. This brings added emphasis to the thesis that the early civic leaders valued the river highly and expected the town lots near it to have special value. The cross streets are at right angles to the river and to the north-south streets.
Evidently an error was made in the survey of the northeast corner of the plat, for on Nov. 13, 1850, the Court made a correction order as follows, "Ordered that so much of the order of the Court heretofore respecting laying off the County Seat of Butler County upon the northeast fraction be rescinded and the Commissioners refund to the purchasers their notes and money for the same." The original order is not in the minutes. The lots involved would be in Davidson's Subdivision and probably explains why the lots numbers in the "Original Town" begin with Lot 7. Only fractional parts of Lots 7, 8, and 9 are in the "Original Town," and no lots are numbered one through six. The tenor of the correction order indicates the Court may have tried to purchase part of the northeast quarter for part of the town site but failed to do so.
The original site did not front on Black River. Consequently the County Court on Aug. 11, 1852, purchased from Jesse A. Gilley, the fraction of the southwest quarter of Section 2 on the west side of the river and adjoining Poplar Bluff, 11.93 acres, for $50.00 Part of this was platted with the rest of the site and is a part of the "Original Town." This purchase gave the County Court control of the entire right bank of Black River from the north boundary to the south boundary. Personally we believe the Court sometime in 1849 or early in 1850 entered into an agreement with Mr. Gilley whereby he was to enter this tract from the public lands and then transfer it to the County. The fact that portions of the tract were platted as part of the "Original Town" prior to the sale of lots May 17, 1850, support this view. The Court could not make the entry directly as the total site would then have exceeded the legal limit of 150 acres for a purchased site.
The "Original Town" is bounded on the west by Eighth Street, on the east by Black River, on the south by Henderson Avenue and on the north by the north line of the southeast quarter extended to Black River. About two blocks of Elm Street are in the "Original Town." The portion of the County Seat site south of Henderson Avenue is not a part of the "Original Town." On May 13, 1851, the Court ordered the Commissioner to sell at public auction on the second Monday of August next, all the land of the site lying each of Black River, 4.34 acres. This is the overflow land in the bend of the river south of the "Original Town."
No report on the sale of lots May 17, 1850, is recorded. The honor of being the first recorded purchaser of a town lot belongs to C.B. Arnold for Lot 11, for $9.75, cash. The transfer is dated May 18, 1850, the day after the public sale so we assume the lot was purchased in the action. The next deeds were made Aug. 12, 1850, Lot 19 for $35.00 to Solomon Kittrell and James S. Ferguson and Lots 13, 18, 23 and 28 to David Humphreys for $35.00. The next transfer is Nov. 13, 1951, Lot 39 to Charles S. Henderson for $20.50. The sale of lots moved very slowly. The above lots are about one-fourth acre in size.
We assume the County Court selected or approved the name, Poplar Bluff, for the new town; but a former order to that effect was never entered in the records. Consequently we do not have the date on which the town was named, nor do we have any information on other names, if any, were suggested. The first written record of the town's name is in the County Court minutes March 18, 1850, as follows, "Ordered that the Town Commiwwio9ner advertise the town lots for sale at Poplar Bluff." The origin of the name "Poplar Bluff" is well established and gives our town a unique and distinctive personality.
The First hunters, traders and settlers to see our present town site came upon a stand of huge tulip poplar trees, growing along the east face of the bluff along the west side of Black River. The tulip poplar is one of the largest, one of the tallest and one of the most inspiringly magnificient (SIC) trees of the American eastern forest. When growing in forest conditions it reaches great heights. There are claims that in the Alleghenies there were poplar trees to 150 to 190 feet tall and ten feet in diameter. Our Missouri specimens were probably not that large, but they did reach magnificent proportions. The trunk of this tree in a forest is free of limbs to a great height, giving it the appearance of a tall, straight column. Its leaves are large, dark green; and in spring the tulip shaped flowers are orange yellow and very striking in appearance. The tree is not a poplar but botanically a magnolia, the Liriodendron Tulipifers.
The appearance of these tall columnar trees along this stretch of Black River was so impressive that the early visitors used it as a descriptive reference or place name, calling it "The Poplar Bluff." Before the county seat site was selected the County Court heard a petition for a road toward Greenville, "commencing on the east bank of Black River at opposite the Poplar Bluff. "Unfortunately the extent of the poplar grove is not now known. We believe it commenced near the Municipal Light and Water Plant and extended down to near the present Missouri Pacific Passenger Station. With such a natural phenomenon at hand and already named there probably was very little opposition to naming the town "Poplar Bluff."
Note: We are indebted to Mr. Frank Hearne, Poplar Bluff, for botanical information on the tulip poplar.
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