Glasgow

The observatory on the back of the plaque left Glasgow. Berenice Morrison pledged $100,000 in 1874, half for the building and a 12.25-inch Alvan Clark telescope and half for an endowment, and it opened at Pritchett College in 1875 under Carr Waller Pritchett. A transit telescope added in 1876 let the college sell time signals to the Chicago and Alton Railroad and to time balls in St. Louis and Kansas City. Central Methodist College at Fayette took over the observatory in 1926 and moved it there in 1935.

What the plaque says

Glasgow Here along the scenic river bluffs where the Missouri forms a natural port, Glasgow was laid out, 1836. Named for pioneer James Glasgow, it was the first successful town in this general area. Charlton, Monticello, and Thorntonsburg, earlier towns which failed, did not have Glasgow's fine location. Glasgow grew as a major shipping point. By 1860, it was the hub of central Missouri's flourishing tobacco trade. The Glasgow to Huntsville plank road, finished 1854, added to the general prosperity. In the Civil War, Confederates under Gen. J. B. Clark, Gen. J. O. Shelby, and Col. S. D. Jackman captured the town held by Federals under Col. Chester Harding, Oct. 15, 1864. The Methodist Church, built in 1849, was used as a hospital. In the postwar period, Glasgow benefited with the coming of the Mo. and Miss. R. R. (Wabash) and Chicago and Alton (G. M. & O.) in the 1870's. The first all-steel bridge in the world was built over the Missouri here by the Chicago and Alton for the railroad, 1879. Gen. Wm. Sooy Smith was construction engineer. This bridge was replaced in 1900. The highway bridge dates from 1925. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1957 Glasgow (Continued from other side) Shipping point and trading town, Glasgow lies in the famed Boon's Lick Region on the west central boundary of Howard County. In the early 1800's, pioneers from Tenn., Va., and Ky. made first permanent settlements. Early educational center, Glasgow's first chartered school was a female academy in 1849. In 1866-67 the non-sectarian Pritchett Institute (College), named for first principal Carr W. Pritchett, was founded by tobacco merchant, Southern Methodist clergyman J. O. Swinney. The once well known Morrison Observatory was a gift to the school, 1874, by Berenice Morrison-Fuller. Astronomer H. S. Pritchett taught here. School closed, 1922. Lewis College was founded here in 1867 under the Methodist Episcopal Church by the family of tobacco merchant Benjamin W. Lewis including his brother, James W.; son, Benj. W. Jr., and wife Eleanor Turner Lewis. Local artist Cornelia A. Kuemmel taught at the college. The last school year was 1892. Lewis Memorial Public Library was founded under the M. E. Church with a bequest from Benj. W. Lewis in 1866. His family gave the building, now oldest library building in Mo. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1957

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Boone's Lick State Historic Site — 10 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 — 13 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.
• Katy Trail State Park — 23 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.
• Annie and Abel Van Meter State Park — 23 mi
  The homeland of the Missouria, the Nutachi, on the loess ridges at the Great Bend, where Marquette's 1673 map placed their town and a cultural center tells their history.

More markers nearby

• Fayette — 9.9 mi
• Arrow Rock — 12 mi
• Keytesville — 15 mi
• Boonville/Franklin — 17 mi