Lion's Club Gazebo ~ Pilot Grove, MO
Posted by: YoSam.
N 38° 52.479 W 092° 54.699
15S E 507663 N 4302870
This gazebo stands on the site of the former Goode Hotel.
Waymark Code: WMN804
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 01/16/2015
Views: 2
County of Gazebo: Cooper County.
Date Gazebo Built: 2003
Lion's Gazebo is located on the former site of the Goode Hotel. This small city park, is in the heart of downtown, and uses space available because of the removal of old broken buildings.
Some history of this town:
PILOT GROVE - 1873
Pilot Grove received its name from an extensive grove of hickory trees surrounding a watering place, a welcome sight to travelers across the featureless prairie.
Two trails met here. One from the Missouri River to the Southwest (Georgetown Road), and the other, heading Northwest to Independence, skirting the Chouteau land grant.
The first recorded settlement was one mile south at the Mt. Vernon Branch, around 1820. Here the Cumberland Presbyterians began a brush arbor church and cemetery, with a school, mill, Methodist Church, Harris Store to follow. John McCutcheon was the first Postmaster, appointed in 1833. Residents along the Georgetown Road saw Gen. Lyon's Union march from Boonville to defeat at Springfield in 1961; "Bloody Bill" Anderson's raid Oct. 1863, and the arrival of the MKT Railroad in 1873, a visit from the "Orphan Train" in the 1920s and a munitions train wreck May 6, 1945.
Commercial development moved north toward the railhead when Pilot Grove became a platted town, formally chartered in 1873, on farmland of Samuel Roe (Postmaster 1858-1872).
The present Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and former Presbyterian and Christian Church congregations date from this time as well as the old city hall and calaboose.
The business district boasted banks, shops, and two newspapers, the "Pilot Grove Bee" and a German weekly. The present recreational park was home to a CCC Camp built in 1939 during the depression years.