Keytesville

The general the plaque says was born here jumped into Normandy. Maxwell D. Taylor, born on August 26, 1901, finished fourth in West Point's class of 1922. In 1943 he went secretly into Rome to arrange an airborne drop, a mission Eisenhower said carried greater risks than he asked of any other emissary in the war. On June 6, 1944, leading the 101st Airborne, he was the first Allied general officer to land in France. He served as Army Chief of Staff, as Kennedy's chairman of the Joint Chiefs and as ambassador to South Vietnam in 1964-65.

What the plaque says

Keytesville Founded, 1832, by Englishman James Keyte, Keytesville is the judicial seat of Chariton County. First seat of the county, organized in 1820, was "Old" Chariton laid out, 1817, near the mouth of the Chariton River by Duff Green, editor, politician. Before floods led to town abandonment, it grew so rapidly that one settler exchanged lots in St. Louis for an equal number in "Old" Chariton, 1819. The county name probably derived from Joseph Charette, a fur trader who drowned in what is now Chariton River, 1795. When the 1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition noted the river, it had two outlets. Since 1904 the 300 miles of curving channel through the county has been straightened to 33 miles. Keytesville became county seat, 1833, James Keyte donating 50 acres for the site. Union troops stationed here surrendered to Confederates under John Thrailkell, Sept. 20, 1864, who burned the courthouse. Sterling Price (1809-67), Missouri governor, 1853-57, and Confederate general, lived near Keytesville. The state statue to him by A. C. Newman is here in Price Park. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1957 Keytesville (Continued from other side) Keytesville serves as seat of justice for a rich grain farming county of the Boon's Lick Region. Southern pioneers who settled following the War of 1812 introduced tobacco and the county was a leader in production into the 1900's. The county lies in territory ceded by Iowa, Sac, and Fox Indians in 1824. Brief hostilities broke out between settlers and a band of Iowas led by Big Neck, 1827. The Indian trail, later called Field's Trace, followed the Missouri through the county. Brunswick, the second town to be founded by James Keyte in the county, was laid out, 1836, on the Missouri which since altered its course. It grew into a prominent river port serving a wide range of settlements before the coming of the railroad. To the east is Salisbury laid out, 1867, by Lucius Salisbury. In Keytesville lived Lisbon Applegate, a member 1845 Mo. Const. Conv.; W. W. Rucker, a congressman, 1899-1923; and Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, appointed Chief of Staff, 1955, was born here. In Salisbury lived John C. Collet, Mo. Supreme Court, later Federal judge; and Roy McKittrick, Mo. Att. Gen., 1933-45. Actor Sol. S. Russell was born in Brunswick. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1957

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Walt Disney Hometown Museum — 20 mi
  A museum in Marceline's old Santa Fe depot, built on the collection of Walt Disney's sister Ruth, about the five years the Disney family farmed outside this railroad town.
• Annie and Abel Van Meter State Park — 21 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.
• Boone's Lick State Historic Site — 25 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.
• General John J. Pershing Boyhood Home State Historic Site — 28 mi
  The nine-room Gothic house in Laclede where John J. Pershing grew up, with the Prairie Mound School he taught in before West Point and a museum of his career.

More markers nearby

• Glasgow — 15 mi
• Fort Orleans — 15 mi
• Fayette — 24 mi
• Laclede — 27 mi