County of first: Stone County
Location of marker: MO-413, Y-Bridge, Galena
Erected by: State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission
Date Erected: 1957
Marker Text:
Galena
Seat of justice for Stone County, Galena lies 1,016 feet above sea level on the James River in whose beautiful, crystal waters the explorer H. R. Schoolcraft reported seeing lumps of galena on his 1818-19 trip in the Ozarks.
First known as Jamestown, the town was originally settled in the 1830s to the south. After the county, named for pioneer judge W.T. Stone, was organized, 1851, the present location and name were adopted.
Stone County lies in the oldest mountain region in the U.S. In 7000 B.C., prehistoric Ozark Bluff Dweller Indians were living in the area. In modern times the county was part of the territory claimed by the Osage until 1808. Delaware Indians, between their land cession in Cape Girardeau County, 1818, and their final Missouri land cession, 1829, lived along the James River.
In early days the county benefited from the Wilderness Road, a north-south Indian and pioneer trail. Near Reeds Spring was Linchpin Campground. The Butterfield Mail route of 1858-61, soon called the Wire Road, cut across northwest Stone County. In 1904 the White River R.R. (Mo. Pac.) arrived.
Galena, in the Missouri Ozarks, serves as seat of a county of the Shepherd of the Hills region, an area famed for its beauty, legends, and folklore. During the Civil War, guerrilla raids halted growth, but post war years brought development as a resort and farming land. Galena to Branson float trips on the James and White rivers became famous, and Stone County developed into one of the state's top tomato producers, the crop being called "Red Gold of the Hills".
Points of interest in Stone and adjacent Taney County are the Shepherd of the Hills Country with its many sites associated with Harold Bell Wright's 1907 novel; Table Rock Dam, Lake, and resort area; and Fairy, Marvel, and Old Spanish caves.
Among Stone County's settlers were such accomplished pioneers as John B. Williams, who opened one of Missouri's early powder mills, 1835, at Cape Fair; Joseph Phillabert, Indian trader; Jacob Yocum, Schoolcraft's guide; and later, Truman S. Powell, editor, legislator, speleologist. Representative Dewey Short is a native of Galena, and here lived folklorist Mary Kennedy McCord as a youth.