County of Marker: Adair County
Location of Marker: US-63 (Baltimore St.), city park, Kirksville
Location of city: center in Adair County; crossroads of US-63 & MO-6/11
Location of city hall: Franklin St & McPherson St
Marker Erected by: State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission
Date Marker Erected: 1953, moved from original location to this park 2008
The Person:
"Jesse Kirk was one of the first settlers in what is now the city limits of Kirksville, Adair County, Missouri. He built a hotel, tavern, and post office in the area where the now-abandoned Willard Elementary School is located on Centenniel Street in Kirksville. His buildings were made of hewed logs. He served as the first Postmaster and the first Treasurer of Adair County. He donated the land for the city square in Kirksville, and after his death, the Adair County Courthouse was built on this land (according to his descendants).
"The town of Kirksville was laid out in 1841 and became the county seat of Adair County on May 18, 1842. Surveyers who laid out the town were treated to a dinner and drinks at Kirk's establishment in 1841, and some say in this way Jesse Kirk bribed them to name the town after him. However, it was a year later that the Adair County Court made the decision to name the town Kirksville. This settlement was once known as Long Point or Hopkinsville, but was given the permanent name of Kirksville when it became the seat of Adair County in 1842.
"Jesse Kirk was the son of James Kirk (1759-1857) and Anna (Horton) Kirk (1762-1838). Jesse's father was a revolutionary soldier who had fought at Yorktown. His parents were both born in Virginia and migrated to Kentucky where Jesse and most of his siblings were born. Jesse's mother died in Kentucky in 1838 and his father remarried. His father lived to be 98 years old and also died in Kentucky. James and Anna Kirk are buried near Lebanon in Marion County, Kentucky." ~ Find-A-Grave
The Place:
Marker Text:
Kirksville Kirksville, distinguished as the site of Missouri's first State teachers college and the world's first college of osteopathy, was settled by pioneers mainly from Kentucky and Tennessee about 1828. First known as Long Point, then as Hopkinsville, the town took the name of Kirksville in honor of early settler Jesse Kirk, when it became the seat of Adair County, 1841.
1
Northeast Missouri State Teachers College was founded as the First District Normal School, 1870, when the legislature provided for normal schools north and south of the Missouri.2 Adair Co. and Kirksville won the north school with a bid including Joseph Baldwin's North Missouri Normal which he had opened, 1867, in the old Cumberland (Presbyterian) Academy, chartered, 1861.
Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1917), founder of osteopathy, opened the American School of Osteopathy, 1892. This school combined with the 1922 Andrew T. Still College of Osteopathy and Surgery, 1926, to form the Kirksville College of Osteopathy and Surgery.3 On the campus is Still's log cabin birthplace, moved here from Jonesboro, Va.
Kirksville, a city of the fertile prairies, founded on land that once belonged to the Sauk, Fox, and Iowa Indians, serves north central Missouri as an educational, hospital, and osteopathic center. This is a financial, wholesale, and manufacturing point for a poultry, livestock, and grain area.
Memorial Park here commemorates the Battle of Kirksville, a Civil War action of Aug.6, 1862. The Federals under Col. John McNeil routed the Confederates under Col. John C. Porter.4 Also in the park is the site of old Cumberland Academy, antecedent institution of the teachers college.
Memorials on the campus of the teachers college are a statue of Joseph Baldwin and the Kirk Memorial Building honoring John R. Kirk college president (1899-1925), leader in public school organization and teacher training. A memorial student loan fund honors Eugene Fair (president 1925-1937), for his state education leadership.
In Kirk Memorial is the noted Violette Museum, named for history professor E.M. Violette who began the collection.
ED. Note:
corrections and update since originally erected. (1953)
1. Kirksville was officially named the Adair County seat on May 18, 1842.
2. In 1996, after several name changes, Northeast Missouri State University became Truman State University.
3. Kirksville College of Osteopathy and Surgery is now called the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine.
4. The correct first name for Colonel Porter is Joseph.