County of city: Howard County
Location of site: City Hall: 100 Market St., Glasgow
Here along the scenic river bluffs where the Missouri forms a natural port, Glasgow was laid out, 1836. Named for pioneer James Glasgow, it was the first successful town in this general area. Chariton, Monticello, and Thorntonsburg, earlier towns which failed, did not have Glasgow's fine location.
Glasgow grew as a major shipping point. By 1860, it was the hub of central Missouri's flourishing tobacco trade. The Glasgow to Huntsville plank road, finished 1854, added to the general prosperity. In the Civil War, Confederates under Gen. J.B. Clark, Gen. J.O. Shelby, and Col. S.D. Jackman captured the town held by Federals under Col. Chester Harding, Oct. 15, 1864. The Methodist Church, built in 1849, was used as a hospital.
In the postwar period, Glasgow benefited with the coming of the Mo. and Miss. R.R. (Wabash) and Chicago and Alton (G.M. & O.) in the 1870s. The first all-steel bridge in the world was built over the Missouri here, 1879. Gen. Wm. Sooy Smith was construction engineer. This bridge was replaced in 1900. The highway bridge dates from 1925.
Shipping point and trading town, Glasgow lies in the famed Boon's Lick Region of the west central boundary of Howard County. In the early 1800s, pioneers from Tenn., Va., and Ky. made first permanent settlements.
Early educational center, Glasgow's first chartered school was a female academy in 1849. In 1866-67 the non-sectarian Pritchett Institute (College), named for first principal Carr W. Pritchett, was founded by tobacco merchant, Southern Methodist clergyman J.O. Swinney. The once well known Morrison Observatory was a gift to the school, 1874, by Berenice Morrison-Fuller. Astronomer H. S. Pritchett taught here. School closed, 1922.
Lewis College was founded here in 1867 under the Methodist Episcopal Church by the family of tobacco merchant Benjamin W. Lewis including his brother, James W.; son, Benj. W. Jr., and wife Eleanor Turner Lewis. Local artist Cornelia A. Kuemmel taught at the college. The last school year was 1892. Lewis Memorial Public Library was founded under the M.E. Church with a bequest from Benj. W. Lewis in 1866. His family gave the building, now oldest library building in Mo.
Text from State Historical Society of Missouri