How Ozark County's towns got their names

Not so long ago Ozark County was full of thriving little towns named after early settlers and the hills, streams, animals and lifestyle they experienced here. Some of these places are still going strong. Mother Nature is busy reclaiming the others. Stray iris patches and broken buildings signal homesteads and communities of earlier days. 

In 1933 a young scholar named Margaret Bell wrote a thesis recording place names that were still active or well within memory. Her work, “Place Names in the Southwest Border Counties of Missouri,” allows us to reimagine those places where our ancestors lived one or a few generations ago. 

The first postmaster of a new settlement usually got the honor of naming the town. 

The communities of Dora and Nora (later named Romance)

When F. M. Chaffin set up a new post office about five miles south of Almartha on March 7, 1881, he called it Nora after his daughter. 

The name soon became a problem when another postmaster, about 30 miles, east known as “old man Fisher” decided to name his place after his daughter Dora. People got confused, and zip codes were far into the future. 

Meanwhile a new Nora postmaster Dr. Jason Norman heard a passing stranger say, “What a romantic place this is.” 

Norman got inspired and changed the town’s name from Nora to Romance and settled all the confusion.

The locals were undoubtedly grateful for the wandering romantic stranger. Norman had a daughter, and Romance might have ended up with a post office named Daisy.

In Ozark County places named after women include Althea, Birda, Dellia, Dora, Igo, Isabella, Lutie, Osta and Theodosia. 

How Theodosia got its name

In 1856 Isabella postmaster Henry A. Brattin named his new office after one of his daughters. I am wondering how many daughters Mr. Brattin had and how he chose between them.

Lutie was named after “some feminine member” from my great-great-grandfather Benjamin B. Jones’s family. 

In 1887 Theodosia’s first postmaster J. M. Herd named his town after his wife. Another version of this history claims postmaster Tully B. Kirby named the town after his daughter Theodosia, who died at age three. 

In either case, the name fared well when construction for Bull Shoals Lake pushed the town uphill towards Lutie in the 1950s. The post office of Lutie surrendered and changed its name to Theodosia. 

If you want to learn more about Theodosia, don’t ask Clint Eastwood. He made a movie called “Million Dollar Baby.” The film shows the main character, played by Oscar-winning actress Hilary Swank, going back to see her mother in Theodosia, Missouri. Turns out, there are palm trees and trailer parks in Theodosia. Perhaps they should re-name the place Hollywood.

Almartha, only town named after a couple Albert and Martha McSpadden

Almartha is the only town to be named for a man and a woman. 

As the third postmaster in Ozark County, Eli S. Forest named Almartha in 1855, after early settlers Albert and his wife Martha McSpadden. 

Places named after men far outnumber those named for women and rightly so, I suppose, if owning property is more important than sewing, cooking, cleaning and having children. 

Ambrose, Bakersfield, Bald Don, Bridges Creek, Duke Allen Hollow, Elijah, Eppley Spring, Hardenville, Hawkins Ridge, Jackson Township, McCabe, Ocie, Paddy, Spoon Spring, Tecumseh, Vaughn, Wetherhill and Willhoit were all named after men. 

Some places give credit to early settler family units: Benner, Blair Hollow, Bratcher School, Brixy Creek, Brown Hollow, Bushong School, Calvin School, Collins School, Dimock, Dobbs School, Dugginsville, Fay School, Grabel, Hammond, Howard’s Ridge, Liner School, Luna, Odom School, Pickrell Creek, Smith Hollow, Souder and Trail.

Bakersfield

We learn how creative our ancestors were by studying Ozark County place names. There’s no wondering why citizens around Bakersfield might call the local spring “Cure-All Springs.” We only wonder what else they were drinking.

Bakersfield is named after Jim Baker who settled the land in 1873. 

I drove through the center of Bakersfield recently. A tall, building towers over old Main Street looking toward Bennetts Bayou. I thought it must have been a busy hotel in its day. I asked several people at lunch in the Old Time Café, but nobody seemed to know anything about it. One person said, “I don’t know. I ain’t that old.”  

Longrun

If you remember driving through old Longrun southwest of Thornfield before they straightened the road, you probably think they named Longrun for the steep hill that made for a scary drive on snowy nights. But the post office and school took their names from nearby Longrun Creek in 1898.

Old Longrun is lost and out of view from the new Highway 95, but it once had three country stores. H. K. Silvey’s cousin Belva Turner was kind enough to show me which of the stores belonged to H. K.’s grandfather, James Riley Silvey. It was a fine, rock structure familiar to many Ozark County travelers.

A sense of humor

Postmasters always seem to have a good sense of humor. In 1892 postmaster J. J. Swayne named his post office Sharp because he was “sharp enough to get the better of Jack Hensley in a trade.” There used to be a place near Sharp called Cottonrock Bluff and Spring. What is cottonrock? A type of limestone named by people in the Missouri Ozarks. It’s not in my college geology book, but Wikipedia knows all about it.

Whoever named Needmore School probably meant we all need more school. But Never Fail School could be a warning to students who don’t do their work. Or it could mean that school never fails to bore them. Or it could be a name created by a very confident teacher. 

Truth-in-advertising

There’s nothing confusing about Possum Walk Creek, Hickory Stump Hollow, Hog Skin Hollow, Hog Danger School, Potato Cave and Turkey Knob. 

These places should win the truth-in-advertising award for the most realistic, descriptive names. Hog Danger School was named after people’s hogs getting stolen, not because the hogs had gone amuck. 

Hog Skin Hollow is where thieves left the skins of their stolen hogs. 

Potato Cave is named after a nearby cave where people used to store their potatoes. My poor grandmother didn’t have a cave so she kept her potatoes on the ground in a dark barn shed with slatted walls. It was a scary place full of snakes and spiders. Unfortunately for her, fear kept me from helping her gather loads of potatoes. 

Possum Walk Creek is named for, well let’s just say it’s more fun to imagine than to be told how it got its name. 

As for Hickory Stump Hollow and Turkey Knob, if you don’t know what a knob (hilltop) or a hollow (valley) is, you’ve haven’t been here long enough. 

Inspiration from across the pond

Englishman J. B. Norton became postmaster in a town he named Somerset after his ancestral home in southwestern England. Rolling hills and a long coastline along the Bristol Channel characterize its view. I don’t know where Somerset was in Ozark County, but I find no evidence of a coastline. Homesickness can make you see things that aren’t there. 

Apparently a lot of English immigrants came from Somerset and longed for home. There are 26 communities named Somerset in North America.

Before Udall became a rustic vacation spot on Norfork Lake, it was a town named St. Leger. In 1848 its first postmaster named the place after himself, Edgar St. Leger Hough. He was an English aristocrat. Thus it might seem normal to name a town after himself, even if it is located northwest of Bakersfield, rather than St. Leger’s native home in Kent, England.

In 1885 a later postmaster named Riley Compton was evidently tired of paying homage to St. Leger and decided to change the town’s name to Udall after hearing a farmer plowing in his field shout at his horse, “You doll, get up!” A certain hillbilly populism rises up in me when I hear this story.

Londoner Samuel A. Baker brought a piece of his home town to the Ozarks when he named Nottinghill after his home district in West London. The population of Nottinghill is about 440. The population of the Notting Hill district in London is over 36,000. The markets at Portobello Road run the entire length of Notting Hill, about three miles. A fun, romantic comedy called “Notting Hill” starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant will give you a good view.

‘…but no one knows what he really said.’

John Squires named the town of Hammond in 1893 in honor of the Hammond family, according to Bell. But another account claims that its first postmaster Walter Please named the place in 1894. When someone asked Please what he wanted to name his post office, “his reply sounded like Hammond, but no one knows what he really said.”

Like Hammond, the tiny community of Thuroy, established in 1928 southwest of Bakersfield, was a victim of confusion. Someone named it for farmer Thursey Marshal, but the Postal Department couldn’t read the postmaster’s writing and the town became Thuroy instead of Thursey. 

At least with Willhoit, the only confusion is about how many “L’s” should be in the name. I asked about this at last summer’s Willhoit-Jones Family Reunion in Theodosia. I always thought it should be with two “L’s” like it appeared on Palmer and Murrill Willhoit’s café that burned back in the 1960s. Nobody gave me a satisfactory explanation. 

According to Bell, the post office established in 1908 was named after J. W. Wilhoit (one “L”). But the Ozark County Times claims that postmaster Cornelius D. Moore first established a post office in that place in 1895 and named it Arp for R. B. Arp who donated his store for the office. When William H. D. Thomas later took over he changed the name to Willhoit. A 1916 mailing list of Ozark County spells it this way, as does Google Maps. This does not require Wilhoits to change their name. The town belongs to Mother Nature either way.  

Differing accounts of how Wasola was named

Wasola store owner John Wesley Thompson named Wasola in about 1914 according to his son W. Rex Thompson. But the Ozark County Times cites postal records that show another store owner John Snelson to be the first postmaster on December 26, 1914. Some neighbors wanted their town to be called Oak Grove because of the Oak Grove General Baptist Church and Oak Grove School district, but the name was already taken in Jackson County. 

Some still think the place name Wasola came from a person in the Osage Indian Tribe. But in 1967 the wise Ozark County Times asked Springfield Public Library researcher Mildred M. Roblee to confirm yet another story that the name Wasola came from a Springfield street that was changed to Prospect in 1921. There is indeed a Prospect Street running north and south in Springfield for about five blocks. 

The Wasola Post Office is one of the last rural post offices in Ozark County. Its existence is threatened by lack of use. Mother Nature is standing by.

Homesick for Gainesville - Georgia, that is

Homesick settlers from Gainesville, Georgia, named our county seat in 1841. I’ve been to Gainesville, Georgia, which is also a county seat (Hall County). It’s a beautiful city on a beautiful lake near the beautiful Chattahoochie-Oconee National Forests. I understand how someone could get homesick. 

But today the Atlanta urban sprawl starts at about 45 minutes southwest of town on I-85. If our early settlers could have seen the future, they wouldn’t be homesick. But then there wouldn’t be a town in Missouri named Gainesville. 

Zanoni, named after a Gothic novel

To me, a retired English professor, the oddest place name in Ozark County is Zanoni. The postmaster named Zanoni in 1898 after British author Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1842 Gothic novel. I am fascinated by the rural postmaster’s attraction to the novel.

In the world of Gothic fiction, dangerous men roam around Europe and scare people. They become heroes in their search for the secret of everlasting life and will pay any price for it. But the hero in Lytton’s novel is Zanoni, a man who sacrifices his immortality for the love of a woman. 

I am now convinced that rural postmasters are the most underestimated, undervalued people in Ozark County.