Clinton County

The newspaper writer born in Plattsburg wrote about New York as a country boy for a living. O. O. McIntyre, born on February 18, 1884, started at the Gallipolis Journal in Ohio in 1902 and began New York Day by Day in 1912. For about twenty-five years it ran in more than 500 papers, 508 at its height across every state, Mexico and Canada, reaching some 15 million readers, written, as he put it, "from a country town angle of a city's glamour." He died in his Manhattan apartment in 1938 and was buried at Gallipolis, above the Ohio.

What the plaque says

Clinton County Once forming part of Missouri's western boundary, Clinton County was organized in 1833 and named for N.Y. Governor DeWitt Clinton. It lost its boundary status in 1837 when the Indian Platte Purchase territory extended the State border to the Missouri. Plattsburg, the county seat, founded 1833, is on site selected by Commissioners David R. Atchison, Howard Everett, and John Long. First called Concord, then Springfield, it was named for Plattsburg, Clinton Co., N.Y., 1835. A U.S. Land Office was located there 1843-59, to handle sales in Platte Purchase. James H. Birch (later Mo. Supreme Court judge) was first register of Public Land. An early school, Plattsburg (Methodist) College opened there in 1855 and closed in 1897 under the private ownership of J. W. Ellis. Cameron, the county's second town, was laid out, 1855. The Hannibal and St. Joseph (Burlington) reached there, 1859. There was Cameron Institute (Mo. Wesleyan College), 1883-1928. Near Cameron is Wallace State Park, named for local family, founded 1932. Lathrop, famed horse and mule market in Boer War and World War I, dates from 1867. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1960 Clinton County (Continued from other side) One of Missouri's leading cattle counties, Clinton is also a grain, dairy, and poultry producer. In territory ceded by Iowa, Sac, and Fox tribes in 1824, the county was settled in the late 1820's. Southerners, New Englanders, Missourians, pioneered the area. In the war years of 1861-65, guerrilla raiders halted growth. The 1870's brought the Chicago, Rock Is. & Pac. and Santa Fe railroads. The Quincy, Omaha, & K.C. came 1897. New towns were laid out along the routes. Plattsburg, Cameron, and Lathrop developed as important shipping points. In Plattsburg is State's statue of David Rice Atchison (1807-1886), U.S. Sen., 1843-55; proslavery leader in the Mo.-Kan. border trouble. He is buried in Plattsburg and his home is in Gower. It is claimed he was "President for a day" since he was pres. pro tem. of the Senate when Zachary Taylor's inauguration was put off from Sun., Mar. 4, 1849, to Mon. In Plattsburg is birthplace of O. O. McIntyre (1884-1938), newspaper writer, and home of novelist J. Breckenridge Ellis (1870-1956). Musician Don Gillis was born in Cameron and there lived artist G. E. Burr. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1960

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Watkins Woolen Mill State Historic Site — 15 mi
  A three-story 1860 woolen mill in the Clay County hills that still holds nearly all its original machinery, at the center of the 3,660-acre Watkins farm called Bethany.
• Glore Psychiatric Museum — 24 mi
  The history of State Lunatic Asylum No. 2 and of mental health treatment, told in the old hospital's surgery building beside a prison, with the Black Archives Museum under the same roof.
• Patee House Museum and Jesse James Home — 25 mi
  An 1858 St. Joseph hotel that held the Pony Express office, a Union provost marshal and two women's colleges, with the house where Jesse James was killed moved onto its lot.
• Pony Express National Museum — 25 mi
  The St. Joseph stables where the Pony Express began on April 3, 1860, now a museum that also tells how the venture was paid for and why it lasted eighteen months.

More markers nearby

• Platte County — 19 mi
• Liberty — 22 mi
• Kingston — 22 mi
• DeKalb County — 23 mi