Lebanon

Silver Dick Bland, whose statue the plaque puts on the courthouse lawn, reached Lebanon by way of the Comstock Lode. Born in Kentucky in 1835, he was treasurer of Carson County in the Utah Territory, now Nevada, from 1860 to 1864, settled here in 1869, and served in Congress for most of the years from 1873 to 1899. His Bland-Allison Act of 1878 made the Treasury buy $2 million to $4 million of silver a month. At the 1896 Democratic convention he led the first three ballots before William Jennings Bryan passed him.

What the plaque says

Lebanon Lebanon, lying 1,265 feet above sea level, in Missouri's Central Ozarks, was founded in 1849 as the seat of newly organized Laclede County. Southern settlers named the town for Lebanon, Tenn. The county name honors the founder of St. Louis. When Lebanon refused the South Pacific Railroad (now the Frisco) free land for a depot, the track was laid a mile from town, 1869. Later Lebanon moved to the railroad and the original site became "Old Town." Novelist Harold Bell Wright (1872-1944) was pastor of the Christian Church here, 1905-07. The setting of his "The Calling of Dan Matthews," published, 1909, is Lebanon. He also used Brice village and Bennett's Mill, both of which once stood in the state park, as background. Bennett Spring State Park, scenic trout fishing resort, features a spring welling up a daily average of 71 million gallons from a gravelly basin 866 feet above sea level. The spring feeds the Niangua River. In 1924, the state bought the park, which lies in both Dallas and Laclede counties. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955 Lebanon (Continued from other side) Lebanon lies midway between Rolla and Springfield, on historic Route 66. Pioneers traveled over an Indian trail through here which later became a part of the St. Louis to Springfield Road. Cherokee Indians, on their "Trail of Tears" removal to Oklahoma in 1837, came along the road here. During the Civil War, the pioneer road became a military highway. A telegraph line strung from Rolla, Mo., to Fort Smith, Ark., went along the road by 1862, and the telegraph route soon became known as "The Old Wire Road." Throughout the war, Lebanon was occupied alternately by Union and Confederate troops. Lebanon is the birthplace of Governor Phil M. Donnelly, elected in 1944 and again in 1952, first in the state to be chosen to two four-year terms. Here lived Richard (Silver Dick) Bland, congressman, 1873-95, 1897-99; Joseph W. McClurg, governor, 1869-71; Negro educator William T. Vernon, Register of the U. S. Treasury, 1906-11. A memorial shaft marks the grave of McClurg in the Lebanon Cemetery and a statue of Bland stands on the courthouse lawn. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bennett Spring State Park — 11 mi
  More than 100 million gallons a day out of a Niangua valley spring, a branch stocked with rainbow trout every day of the season, and the mill valley and CCC lodge that came first.
• Ha Ha Tonka State Park — 21 mi
  Collapsed caverns laid open above the Niangua arm of the Lake of the Ozarks: a natural bridge, a sinkhole amphitheater, a spring in a gorge and the burned stone shell of a Kansas City businessman's castle.

More markers nearby

• Dallas County — 24 mi
• Webster County — 27 mi