Platte County

Platte City has known war and outlaws. On December 16, 1861, a Union squad under Col. W. James Morgan razed the town, courthouse included, and the present courthouse went up afterward. Jesse James planned to rob the Platte City bank on April 3, 1882, the morning Robert Ford shot him. In July 1933 local officers ambushed Bonnie and Clyde at the Red Crown Tourist Court just south of town, and after the shootout Blanche Barrow was held in the jail beside the courthouse, which is now on the National Register.

What the plaque says

Platte County Platte is one of 6 counties formed from the U. S. Government's 1836 Platte Purchase in which Iowa, Sac, Fox, and small bands of other Indian tribes gave up over 2 million acres of land for $7,500 and other benefits. The Purchase was annexed to Missouri, 1837, and Platte County, comprising 414 square miles, was organized, 1838. The name comes from the nearby Platte (Fr. shallow) River. In a fertile, glacial plains region, Platte County, early leading hemp grower, is now noted for its tobacco, grain, and livestock farms. Missouri's oldest continuing county fair is Platte County's, begun, 1858. First settler near Platte City, the county seat, was Zadoc Martin who came, 1828, and ran a Platte River ferry for traffic to Fort Leavenworth. Weston, early thriving Missouri River port, now noted for its pre- Civil War architecture and tobacco market, was founded, 1837-38, to the northwest by Joseph Moore and Bela M. Hughes. Parkville, prominent early town to the southeast was settled by George S. Park, 1838. Northward, Camden Point and New Market were settled in the 1840's. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955 Platte County (Continued from other side) Settled largely by Southerners, Platte County expanded with a planter economy. The rich soil of the area was early noted by the 1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition. Platte County was deeply involved in the Kansas border strife over the extension of slavery that broke out when the Kansas- Nebraska Act allowed slavery north of 36° 30' in 1854 by repealing the 1820 Missouri Compromise. At Parkville, the press of the "Industrial Luminary" was thrown into the river when editor George S. Park criticized activities of proslavery men. In the Civil War, the area was torn by guerrilla warfare and Platte City, a proslavery center, was burned in 1861 and in 1864. Among 15 schools of higher learning in the county by the 1890's is today's noted Park College, founded by George S. Park and John A. McAfee at Parkville, 1875. Guy B. Park, governor, 1933-37, and David R. Atchison, pro-Southern leader and senator, 1843-55, lived in Platte City. Ben Holladay the "Stagecoach King" lived at Weston. Near here is the pioneer Flintlock Baptist Church. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Patee House Museum and Jesse James Home — 20 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 — 20 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.
• Glore Psychiatric Museum — 21 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.
• Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum — 22 mi
  A hangar at Atchison's airport built around Muriel, a 1935 Lockheed Electra 10-E of the model Earhart vanished in, saved from scrap, restored over three decades and brought to her birthplace in 2016.

More markers nearby

• Fort Leavenworth — 11 mi
• The City of Leavenworth — 12 mi
• Historic Fort Leavenworth — 16 mi
• Clinton County — 19 mi