County of town: Polk County
Location of town: On MO 123, just off MO 13, in the NW corner of the county
Wikipedia states the town was incorporated in 1873; when actually it was incorporated May 30th 1872
Zoe Akins was born here. Her father, Thomas J. Akins, opened the Humansville People's Headquarters department store (1890) and became the first president of the local bank
Details: Firemans Memorial Veterans Memorial James G Human Historic Marker City Park
Civil War History:
"Skirmish at Humansville
"On March 26, 1862, a minor action occurred at Humansville, Missouri, when a party of about 300-400 irregular Confederate soldiers skirmished with two companies of McClurg's Batallion Missouri State Militia (later the 8th Cavalry Missouri State Militia) on the southern outskirts of the town. Losses on both sides were minimal, although one of those killed was the rebel leader, Colonel Frazier. The skirmish is, therefore, considered a Union victory, since the Southerners retired after Frazier was killed. Several accounts of this affair identify the rebel leader who was killed as Colonel Julian Frazier of Wright County, the same man who commanded the Southern force at Springfield at the time of Zagonyi's charge in the fall of 1861. However, this is an error. The man who was fatally wounded at Humansville was Colonel James M. Frazier, a prominent citizen of Cedar County prior to the war. The definite proof of this appears in a Union Provost Marshal's file in which a man named German P. Bacon of Cedar County is charged with violating the laws of war for participating in the skirmish as part of James M. Frazier's guerrilla band. A separate Provost Marshal's file charges a second Cedar County man with the same offense, although Frazier's last name is not given in this second file. A contemporaneous newspaper account of this skirmish identifies the rebel leader as "Polk" Frazier. This, of course, does not prove that his name was actually James instead of Julian, but it's probably more likely that a man named James who grew up during the 1840s would be called "Polk" than a man named Julian, since James K. Polk was president during that time. In addition, nearly all the men under Frazier were recruits from the Cedar and Vernon County areas (including Henry Taylor and his men). It's unlikely Julian Frazier from Wright County would have been recruiting in the Cedar and Vernon County area. Missouri guerrillas and former Missouri State Guard leaders who were recruiting for the Confederacy almost always operated in the general area where they lived or had grown up. " ~
Ozarks History
Also of interest:
From HUMANSVILLE to HOLLYWOOD
"Zoe Akins wrote a play in the early 1950s called
The Greeks Had a Word For It. In 1953, it was adapted for the screen as,
How to Marry a Millionaire. Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Lauran Bacall starred in the film, and it made Marilyn Monroe popular. Zoe Akins’s time in Hollywood came at the culmination of her career, a career where she competed with men playwrights, but was still able to attain a measure of success.
"She was born in Humansville in 1886 and went to school at Hosmer Hall (an all girls school in St. Louis) where she studied theater and drama. Writing was her main interest and she wrote over 40 plays, 18 were produced on Broadway. In 1935 she received a Pulitzer Prize for drama for her adaption of The Old Maid.
"She passed away in Los Angeles, California in 1958." ~ Women of Missouri