Stoutsville

Stoutsville is located in the northwestern part of Jefferson Township, on Sec. 13, Twp. 65, R. 9, on the M. K. & T. R.R. and was laid out in 1871.  The town was named for Robert P. Stout, a wealthy and influential farmer, who came to Monroe Co., from Ky., at an early day and died at the age of 67 years. His widow gave the railroad company six acres of land, and to express its appreciation it named the town in honor of her husband. The first business house in the town was erected by Dennis Thompson and was used as a grocery store. The first dry goods and general store was opened by Henry Dooley and J. R. Nolan. Dennis Thompson opened the first drug store. Jethro Hardwick was the pioneer blacksmith. Dr. Hagan was the first physician. Albert Price was one of the first postmasters.

--Directory of Towns, Villages, and Hamlets, Past and Present, of Monroe Co., Mo. ,  p. 157, 156; Conard, Vol. 6, p. 99     

More History of Stoutsville

Straddling the east-west line of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad a quarter of a mile east of the north fork of Salt River, the town of Stoutsville is situated in a creek valley on the broken edge of a great prairie region in Monroe county. The town was named in honor of pioneer landowner Robert P. Stout whose family donated land to the railroad after his death in 1867. Between its original platting in 1871 and World War I, Stoutsville was a trading point for the surrounding farming community, railroad town, cattle shipping point, lumber area and regional center for the manufacture of wood products.

Early town development paralleled the railroad line beginning with an eight block area ,three along the north side of the tracks. five on the south. Steep limestone bluffs and deep cuts for streams directed the town’s growth to the rolling hills to the north, and by 1917 six additions containing nine blocks doubled the town’s size. The area around Stoutsville was most suitable for Kentucky immigrants, with its rich bottomland. spring water, and timber for lumber and fuel resources richly abundant in the township.

One of the first buildings in Stoutsville was a log structure used as a church and school. According to local legend, Samuel Clemens and his Quarles cousins attended classes there in the 1840’s. In 1875, a daily stage operated between Stoutsville and Florida, with mail service two years later. J.W. Conrad & Company established a pottery works in 1881, producing stoneware famous in the region. Stoutsville became a major shipping point for railroad ties and hardwood timber, products obtained from rich stands of oak, hickory and walnut. During the 1890’s, Stoutsville reached its peak of prosperity. Besides having a railroad depot, three dry goods and general stores, two drug stores, four boarding houses, a furniture store, cabinet shop, saloon, blacksmith shop (where spring wagons were made) and a telegraph and express office. The town had such amenities as two hotels and a picture gallery as well as a one-room opera house. In 1879, the town gained the services of a medical doctor, and in 1893 the farmers’ bank was established.

In the early morning hours of May 17, 1909, Stoutsville sustained a major fire starting upstairs in Lyon’s Drug Store. The fire first engulfed the entire north side of Broadway, and then spread across the street where it destroyed the other half of the town’s major businesses. Due in part to war prosperity, Stoutsville grew once again in the years 1910-20, rebuilding much of the downtown area. Sustained by farming and lumbering and augmenting its growth through the continued manufacturing and shipping of railroad ties and cattle, the town also supported light industry in the form of a pipe factory (hickory smoking pipes) and an axe handle factory. 

The structural evolution of Stoutsville falls along traditional lines. As the town prospered, frame buildings replaced earlier log ones, and, due largely to the great fire, many were in turn replaced by masonry (both stone and brick) structures. The rebuilt downtown blocks consisted largely of one and two story buildings with frame facades and structure and limestone party and rear walls. Houses were generally modest frame structures one to two stories in height, many built in the same vernacular that characterizes the Hugh C. Slee house. Some of the more notable structures were the Farmers’ Bank,a single-story stone building with a pedimented corner entrance, the two story Frame Valley House Hotel, the two story stone high school (replaced later with a brick building) on the west bluff, and Saint Andrew’s Catholic church, a stone gothic revival edifice.

The decline of the town began after 1920. Bypassed by the state highway and financially beset by the closing of both banks, Stoutsville's population and importance as a commercial center began to dwindle. From a population of several hundred in 1900, only seventy-five people remained in Stoutsville and the township in 1970. At the time of its 1971 centennial a few business structures remained, but all commercial and residential life within the town’s boundaries had ceased. In 1974, the railroad was relocated 300 feet to the north, obliterating much of the remainder of the town. To the north of the town,  a ”new Stoutsville” (containing two frame churches and a number of houses moved from the old town) was established in an area that will remain above the wateline of the Clarence Cannon reservoir. In 1978, only the shells of the structures along Broadway and a handful of domestic buildings still remain.