The Chariton and Randolph R.R. named its proposed junction for William Moberly, head of the road, and offered free land to residents of once nearby Allen to settle here. Patrick Lynch, who alone accepted, was given two lots by the North Missouri after the Civil war for holding the site without "the loss of a life or a house."
Moberly has been a division point since 1867 when the North Mo. (Wabash) reached Brunswick. Huge railroad repair shops, one of the earliest railroad plants west of the Mississippi, were opened, 1872. The M.K. & T. formed a junction here, 1873. Transportation facilities brought industrial growth and the development of the soil, fire clay, and coal resources of the area.
Moberly lies in a glacial plains area in a county organized, 1829, and named for John Randolph of Roanoke, Va. In Missouri's Little Dixie Region, it was first settled by William Holman, 1818. William Fort boiled salt at a spring near Huntsville in 1820's. The Bee Trace, a pioneer trail, ran along the Grand Divide between the Missouri and Mississippi through the county. The Iowa, Sac, and Fox tribes gave up claims to the region, 1824.
At Huntsville, county seat since 1831, a plank road was built to Glasgow, 1854, and the 1855-82 Mt. Pleasant (Baptist) College was founded. County legal business has been conducted at Huntsville and Moberly since 1885. Moberly Junior College opened, 1927.1
World War II Gen. Omar N. Bradley, first Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, was born in nearby Clark. Moberly's airport is named for him. Moberly is the home of novelist Elizabeth Seifert Gasparotti and birthplace of writer Jack Conroy. G.W.P. Hunt, first Governor of Arizona, was born in Huntsville. Hancock L. Jackson, interm Gov. of MO., 1857; Lt. Gov., 1857-61, and the biochemist Victor C. Vaughn, were natives of Randolph County.2
1. Moberly Junior College is now Moberly Area Community College.
2. The correct spelling is Victor C. Vaughan.
Elizabeth Gasparotti published eighty-two novels under her maiden name, Elizabeth Seifert. She specialized in romantic tales featuring doctors and nurses as protagonists, hospitals as settings, and medical events and emergencies as the primary plot elements.