Boonville

The Thespian Hall on the plaque was built to hold a town, not just a stage. The two-story Greek Revival brick building of 1855-57 had a reading room in the basement, a theater and lecture hall on the main floor, and city hall, a Masonic lodge and an Odd Fellows hall upstairs. It was enlarged in 1901, ran as a movie theater from 1912 to 1976, and was listed on the National Register in 1969. It still hosts concerts, art shows and plays, and the town calls it the oldest continuously running theater west of the Alleghenies.

What the plaque says

Boonville Historic Boonville's first settlers were pioneer Mother Hannah Allison Cole and her 9 children who located on the Missouri River bluffs where St. Joseph Hospital now stands, 1810. Hannah, whose husband William T. Cole was killed by Indians, ran first river ferry here. In the War of 1812, her place served a wide area as a neighborhood fort. Boonville, on trails west and southwest, was laid out in 1817 by Charles Lucas and Asa Morgan and named for Daniel Boone. It became the seat of Cooper County, 1819. Second county in the Boons Lick Region, it was organized, 1818, and named for pioneer Sarshall Cooper. Boonville grew as a river port, distribution point, and cultural center. Thespian Hall (Lyric), oldest theatre in use in Mississippi Valley, was built, 1855-57. In 1844, a boarding school opened which is today known as The Kemper School. The first State Fair was held here in 1853. The Battle of Boonville, first engagement of the War Between the States in Missouri, occurred near town, June 17, 1861. Federals under Gen. Nathaniel Lyon routed untrained State Guards under Gen. John S. Marmaduke. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1959 Boonville (Continued from other side) Boonville, in an upland prairie county of grain and livestock farming, is in territory ceded by Osage tribes, 1808. Settlers from the South were later joined by many from Germany. By early 1900's the M.K.T. and Mo. Pac. railroads supplanted river trade. The railroad bridge at Boonville was built in 1874 and the highway bridge in 1924. Points of interest are the town's historic markers; Harley City Park; Christ Episcopal Church (1846); Walnut Grove Cemetery. Mo. Training School for Boys dates from 1889. Atop an Indian mound near mouth of the Lamine, in Cooper County, is grave of fur trader, first Mo. Lt. Gov. William H. Ashley. South is Chouteau Springs, part of the land given Pierre Chouteau by the Osage, 1792. At Rocky Cut, near Otterville, the James and Younger Boys robbed a train July 7, 1876. Here was born William M. Williams, Mo. Supreme Court Justice; Lon V. Stephens, Gov. of Mo., 1897-1901; Walter Williams, journalist, educator. Here lived David Barton, first Mo. U.S. Senator; Jacob F. Gmelich, Lt. Gov., 1909-13; George G. Vest, lawyer, statesman; George C. Bingham, Mo. artist; C. C. Bell, horticulturist. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1959

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Katy Trail State Park — 8.6 mi
  Two hundred forty miles of the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas rail bed between Machens and Clinton, mostly along the Missouri River, first opened in 1990 at Rocheport, where it runs through the railroad's stone tunnel.
• Boone's Lick State Historic Site — 12 mi
  The salt spring in the Howard County woods that Daniel Boone's sons worked from 1805, whose name spread to a road, a country and the first American settlement of central Missouri.
• Arrow Rock State Historic Site — 14 mi
  A Boonslick river town of more than 1,000 that the river and railroads left behind, built and worked by enslaved people, now a village of fifty and a National Historic Landmark.
• Rock Bridge Memorial State Park — 22 mi
  Karst on the edge of Columbia: a boardwalk through a natural rock tunnel to the Devil's Icebox sinkholes, over a cave that is the only known home of the pink planarian.

More markers nearby

• Boonville/Franklin — 2.9 mi
• Fayette — 13 mi
• Arrow Rock — 14 mi
• Glasgow — 20 mi