Mexico

The trainer the plaque names in passing was born enslaved. Tom Bass came into the world on January 5, 1859, on the Hayden plantation in Boone County. He designed a curb bit meant to give a rider control without hurting the horse, never patented it, and it is still in use. He won a world championship on the mare Miss Rex at Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition, trained horses owned by Buffalo Bill Cody, Theodore Roosevelt and Will Rogers, and helped start Kansas City's American Royal, where he was the first Black exhibitor. He is buried in Mexico's Elmwood Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Mexico Internationally known for its firebrick industry and famed for its saddle horses, this county seat was laid out by Robert C. Mansfield and James H. Smith not long before Audrain County was organized, 1836. Named for legislator James H. Audrain and settled mainly by Southerners, the county lies in the Little Dixie Region of Missouri. Rex McDonald, one of the world's greatest saddle horses, whose blood line has played an important part in the development of the easy-gaited, graceful American Saddle Horse, was foaled at nearby Auxvasse, 1890. He is buried at the fairgrounds in Mexico. Here lived famed Negro trainer Tom Bass and here he trained Belle Beach, champion high schooled mare. Mexico claims the first $1,500 saddle horse show ring and the first $1,000 trotting and pacing stakes. It was early a harness racing center. Fireclay deposits mined here are among the largest and purest known, and Mexico is one of the leading firebrick producing centers in the world. Refractories are also at Vandalia and Farber. Located here is a huge soybean storage and processing plant. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955 Mexico (Continued from other side) A commercial and industrial hub, served by 3 railroads, Mexico lies in the glacial plains region of Missouri, a highly fertile area of rich grain and livestock farms. The first permanent settlement was made, 1816. Settlers were sometimes called "Salt River Tigers," from the main body of water in the county, South Fork of Salt River. Pioneers, searching for horses stolen by a band of Potawatomies, were assailed at nearby Skull Lick, 1810. One of these killed was William T. Cole, whose wife, Hannah, later was the first settler at Boonville, Cooper County. In the Civil War, Mexico, mainly Southern in sympathy, was early occupied by Union troops. U.S. Grant, while stationed here, July 1861, learned of his commission as a general. Hardin College for women, 1873-1932, was established by Charles H. Hardin, governor, 1874-76. The college traces back to an 1858 female academy. Today's noted Missouri Military Academy was founded, 1889, under Hardin's leadership. The Audrain County Historical Society maintains a museum. Local historical sites of interest are marked. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Union Covered Bridge State Historic Site — 22 mi
  An 1871 oak bridge over the Elk Fork of the Salt River on the old Paris to Fayette road, the last Burr-arch covered bridge in Missouri, mended after a century of floods.
• America's National Churchill Museum — 22 mi
  The Westminster College campus where Churchill gave the Iron Curtain speech in 1946, with a bombed Wren church from London rebuilt stone by stone above his museum.
• Rock Bridge Memorial State Park — 31 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

• Fulton — 22 mi
• Mark Twain — 23 mi
• Columbia — 28 mi