Kennett
Missouri
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City of Kennett Missouri
History of Kennett:
Here in the Southeast Lowland Region of Missouri on a Delaware and Shawnee Indian Village site, Kennett was laid out as the seat of Dunklin County, in 1846. The town was first called Chilletecaux for a Delaware Indian living here at the time. Later it was known as Butler. In 1851 it was renamed Kennett for the Mayor of St. Louis, L. M. Kennett. The county name honors Missouri Governor Daniel Dunklin.
Kennett is the seat of the first "Bootheel" county formed after Missouri became a state. The extreme southeast counties of Dunklin (1845) and Pemiscot (1851), with a section of New Madrid (1812), are said to be part of Missouri through the efforts of J. Hardeman Walker, pioneer planter in Pemiscot County. Kennett is 100 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee, and 200 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri.
Kennett grew as a trade and legal center as Dunklin County developed into a noted cotton, soybean and livestock farming area we now include rice and corn as important additions to area agriculture.. When organized in 1845, Dunklin County was an isolated region of forest, overflowed lowlands, and swamp, bearing the mark of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812.
Effective land reclamation began in 1893 when the state provided for organization of county drainage districts and levees on the St. Francis River. Dunklin County is in the Little River Drainage District, one of the largest drainage systems in the United States, organized in 1905. Drainage districts include some 300,000 of Dunklin County's 347,524 acres.
In the Civil War the county was known as the "Independent State of Dunklin" after adoption of a resolution in 1862 that Dunklin would secede from the Union. Union troops were in Kennett briefly in 1863 and guerilla raiders roamed the area constantly. Recovery began with the coming of the Little River Valley and Arkansas Railroad (Cotton Belt) to Kennett in 1890. Reclamation began in the 1890's and brought a population increase from 21,706 to 45,329 by 1950.
Nearby in Dunklin County on the St. Francis River the 230-foot altitude is the lowest elevation in Missouri. Eight copper eagle-embossed Indian Ceremonial plates, now a part of the Wulfing Collection at Washington University in St. Louis, were found to the North in 1906.
Here in the Southeast Lowland Region of Missouri on a Delaware and Shawnee Indian Village site, Kennett was laid out as the seat of Dunklin County, in 1846. The town was first called Chilletecaux for a Delaware Indian living here at the time. Later it was known as Butler. In 1851 it was renamed Kennett for the Mayor of St. Louis, L. M. Kennett. The county name honors Missouri Governor Daniel Dunklin.
Kennett is the seat of the first "Bootheel" county formed after Missouri became a state. The extreme southeast counties of Dunklin (1845) and Pemiscot (1851), with a section of New Madrid (1812), are said to be part of Missouri through the efforts of J. Hardeman Walker, pioneer planter in Pemiscot County. Kennett is 100 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee, and 200 miles south of St. Louis, Missouri.
Kennett grew as a trade and legal center as Dunklin County developed into a noted cotton, soybean and livestock farming area we now include rice and corn as important additions to area agriculture.. When organized in 1845, Dunklin County was an isolated region of forest, overflowed lowlands, and swamp, bearing the mark of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812.
Effective land reclamation began in 1893 when the state provided for organization of county drainage districts and levees on the St. Francis River. Dunklin County is in the Little River Drainage District, one of the largest drainage systems in the United States, organized in 1905. Drainage districts include some 300,000 of Dunklin County's 347,524 acres.
In the Civil War the county was known as the "Independent State of Dunklin" after adoption of a resolution in 1862 that Dunklin would secede from the Union. Union troops were in Kennett briefly in 1863 and guerilla raiders roamed the area constantly. Recovery began with the coming of the Little River Valley and Arkansas Railroad (Cotton Belt) to Kennett in 1890. Reclamation began in the 1890's and brought a population increase from 21,706 to 45,329 by 1950.
Nearby in Dunklin County on the St. Francis River the 230-foot altitude is the lowest elevation in Missouri. Eight copper eagle-embossed Indian Ceremonial plates, now a part of the Wulfing Collection at Washington University in St. Louis, were found to the North in 1906.