By Art Wallhausen
Mississippi County, Missouri, is the easternmost county in the United States located west of the Mississippi River. Its county seat, Charleston, is located twelve miles from the confluence of that river with the Ohio.
Archaeological findings indicate the pre-historic inhabitants of the county included the Mound Builder civilization. Before the advancement of farming, the land was dotted with multiple native American mounds filled with artifacts leading to numerous collections that remain in private ownership.
The first American settlement in the county, a trading post near the rivers’ confluence, took place in 1800. Within a year, at least one pioneer had settled on Matthews Prairie, where Charleston now stands. By 1820, other settlers had arrived, primarily farmers, many migrating from Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as Illinois, drawn by the cheap and fertile lands found in the area — fertile due to rich topsoil deposited by centuries of river floods.
Because of the lack of good drainage, a large area that includes Mississippi County was once known as “Swampeast Missouri.” The swamp problem was eliminated with the construction of a drainage and levee system begun in the late 1800s and continuing into the early 1900s. Legend has it that more dirt was dug for this project than was dug for the Panama Canal. The result of this work left the land even more valuable for its owners.
Due to the rich soil, agriculture has always been the principal industry supporting Charleston’s economy. Mississippi County land was cultivated in the early years for cotton, corn, and wheat. Until the late 1940s, this industry required large numbers of workers, most of whom lived on the farms. More recently, soybeans and rice have been important commodity crops, now grown on an industrial scale, and requiring relatively little labor due to mechanization.
In 1837, one of the first pioneers, Joseph Moore, purchased 22½ acres of land for the price of $337, and laid out a plan for the town of Charleston, which he named after his brother. The plan was for a town twelve blocks square – four north-south, and three east-west. The 1860 census showed the town with a population of 273, which would grow to 635 by 1870. The Missouri General Assembly passed an act to incorporate the town in 1872.
Many of the early Mississippi County plantations and smaller farms used slave labor until after the Civil War, and slaves also served as household servants to some families in Charleston. Mississippi County’s population in 1860 included 1,010 slaves, according to the U.S. Census slave schedule, approximately one-fifth of the total population of 4,859. After emancipation, some, and perhaps most, of these former slaves continued working for their former owners as paid servants in the homes or “sharecroppers” on the farms.
Like many towns in parts of the Midwest and the South, Charleston has a history of segregation with all its poor housing and vast indignities. That day is over, but its lessons will never be forgotten.
The town has a Civil War battle in its history. The Battle of Charleston was fought on August 19, 1861. Killed in the battle were one Union soldier and thirteen Missouri State Guard soldiers. There was another Civil War battle a few miles south of Charleston. General Grant’s first engagement with Confederate troops occurred in Belmont, located on the river at that time. Although not considered a major battle, both sides suffered numerous casualties. Other minor skirmishes included a robbery of the Charleston bank by rebels.
With the end of the war came development of railroads, and by the 1870s it was possible to travel by rail from Charleston to Sikeston, and from there to connect with trains bound for St. Louis or Memphis.
In the early 20th century, before the construction of paved roads, there were as many as six passenger trains a day arriving and departing from the Charleston depot, including, for a time, Pullman car service to St. Louis. There was no railroad bridge across the Mississippi River; but the Missouri Pacific and Cotton Belt railroad trains steamed east to a landing at Birds Point, where as many as two passenger cars could be loaded on a ferry boat and taken across the river to Cairo, Illinois, to connect with the Chicago-to-New Orleans Illinois Central trains.
As the automotive age began, cars and trucks also used ferries from Birds Point to get from Missouri to Illinois. This continued until completion of the U. S. Highway 60 bridge in 1929. Ferries were also used to get to Kentucky until a similar bridge from Illinois to that state opened in 1938.
On October 31, 1895, Charleston was the epicenter of a significant earthquake on the New Madrid Seismic Zone. The quake damaged virtually every building in the town and created sand volcanoes. Chimneys toppled as far away as St. Louis, Memphis, Alabama, and Indiana.
A memoir describing the town as it was during the first three decades of the 20th century was written in 1978 by Ellis W. Howlett, who was born there in 1901 and served as clerk of the Circuit Court for 43 years. Charleston had 1,900 residents at the turn of the century and 3,400 by 1930; and Howlett described a period of progress, with significant investment in infrastructure and improvement in quality of life.
An elegant new county courthouse with a clock in the dome was dedicated in 1902; and the Methodist, Roman Catholic, Disciples of Christ, Baptist, and Presbyterian denominations all built new churches during this era.
Most of the commercial buildings now on Charleston’s Main Street and nearby were built during the early years of the century, including in 1907 a three-story mercantile store that Mr. Howlett as a child thought was a skyscraper. The splendid Russell Hotel was constructed in 1917, and housed visitors who arrived at the railroad depot, a 1918 building.
The thriving little town had several small industries – a milling company, a handle factory, a stave mill, a lumber mill, five cotton gins, a soft drink bottling plant, and a cotton compress. There was a wide variety of business establishments – banks, clothing and hardware stores, a bakery, two confectioneries, several cafes, a dime store, a photographer studio, pharmacies, lumber companies, coal dealers, three livery stables, five hotels, boarding houses, a city owned power plant, a telephone company, Western Union office, shoemakers, a locksmith, a blacksmith, two newspapers, and, by the end of this period, gas stations and automobile dealers. There were also physicians, dentists, attorneys, and civil engineers. A privately owned waterworks with only a few customers was purchased by the city, and city-wide water and sewer systems were constructed.
To accommodate increases in the number of children, as well as a growing interest in students’ going beyond an elementary education, a new school for grades 1 to 12 opened in 1902; followed by a stand-alone high school that cost almost $17,000 in 1910. That building, in turn, became a second elementary school when a more modern high school opened in 1925.
The postwar 1920s and 1930s were a difficult time for agriculture due to low commodity prices, and therefore for the larger community. All of the county’s ten banks failed during this period, and Howlett remembered that “in the early 1930s, (as Recorder of Deeds) I recorded more foreclosure and Sheriff’s deeds under tax sales than any other type of deed.” He said “crops and livestock were so cheap…they were hardly worth harvesting. Good land sold for $10 an acre.”
In 1937, local business owners worked with the Brown Shoe Company to locate a factory in Charleston. This plant hired more than 500 workers, and remained Mississippi County’s largest employer for half a century, providing a solid economic base for the city, and in part accounting for its population growth to 5,200 by 1940.
During the 1940s, the town went through the trauma of sending young men off to war, and losing many. While many of those who survived returned home, others had traveled to other parts of the country while in service and established families elsewhere. It was also during this period that the mechanization of agriculture was nearly complete, and farm workers had to find new work. Some rural families moved to Charleston; but there was also a significant migration to St. Louis, Chicago, and other large northern cities. With movement away from the farms, Mississippi County lost 2,500 people between 1940 and 1960, while Charleston gained over 700, reaching 5,900, an all-time high mark.
The period from 1960 until 1980 saw dramatic improvements in Charleston’s infrastructure and in living conditions for its African-American residents. It was in some ways two decades of exceptional development and optimism, despite a loss of population to 5,200.
The one-room schools in the rural parts of the county were closed as twelve small school districts merged with the Charleston schools. The segregated Lincoln School was closed, and new, modern, integrated elementary and high schools were built to accommodate the large number of students from both Lincoln and the rural school districts. The 1925 “Charleston High School” became a junior high.
A multi-million-dollar “Urban Renewal” federal investment in community development during the period from 1960 to 1980 significantly improved the appearance of Charleston’s downtown area, if at the expense of some of its individuality. It also eliminated a major eyesore on the west side of town — the ugly, ramshackle shacks in which most of the black population had always lived. These shacks were replaced by new public housing projects, and in some cases by new homes for the few individuals who had owned their dwellings in the renewal area.
Several dilapidated downtown buildings were torn down, and Main Street was given a “new look” by attractive brick-and-metal awnings that stretched for three blocks in front of existing storefronts.
This was also the period when the Interstate highway system was being built across the United States, including a new bridge across the Mississippi River just a few miles away and Charleston found itself located on Interstate 57, part of a Chicago-to-New Orleans highway, with daily traffic of up to ten thousand vehicles. A new shopping center and travel service businesses were constructed at one Interstate interchange, with similar investments made at the second interchange.
Town, county, and business leaders worked with the state government to attract new manufacturing jobs for the community. These efforts included new public investments, such as building a small airport and creating an industrial park. Several new companies did open small plants; but closed after a few years due to labor disputes and other factors.
Despite the optimism and developments of this period the improvements were not enough to maintain Charleston’s prosperity over the long term.
The Charleston shoe factory closed in 1991, as manufacturing jobs in America relocated to cheaper labor markets in Asia and Latin America. The loss of these hundreds of jobs, plus the increasing mechanization of agriculture — the industry whose owners and workers throughout the county once supported businesses of all types in Charleston — are reflected in changes in the population of both the town and Mississippi County.
The county’s largest population was 23,000, recorded in 1940; but that number had fallen to about 11,000 in 2020, not including the residents of a state prison which opened at Charleston in 2001. The prison houses up to 1,600 prisoners who are now included in the census data and inflating the numbers. Post-census projections in 2024 put Charleston’s current population at about 4,400 (including the prison occupants).
Many retail establishments closed towards the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. This resulted in a dramatic loss in the types of services available in Charleston, which was the principal commercial center for both the town and the county.
Where once the town had two large supermarkets and several small markets serving neighborhoods, now there is only one grocery store of modest size. Where once there were four pharmacies, now there is only one. Where once there were two newspapers, now there is only one. (This paper has a “Charleston” name; but is published in nearby East Prairie, and has a circulation of less than 600 instead of the 3,000 it had at its high point.) Where once there were appliance dealers, a two-story furniture store, and three department stores, now there are none. School enrollment is less than half what it was in 1975. The list goes on and on.
Despite all these negatives, Charleston is still a beautiful little town with a rich history.
On three residential streets – Main, Commercial, and Cypress, the pioneer families, their descendants, and many others built spectacular homes which have been well maintained for a century or more.
A garden club initiative over a period of thirty years led to the planting of flowering dogwood trees and azaleas throughout the town; and the resulting springtime beauty attracts thousands of visitors to a Dogwood-Azalea Festival each year.
There are lovely parks and historic sites, cafes, and shops to be enjoyed. Perhaps an influx of tourists driving through the area on Interstate 57 will visit The Charleston Project in the future, and in doing so help to revitalize this charming community.