County of town: Cole County
Location of town: MO C, SE part of county, S. of Jefferson City
Population: 807
"It was about 1830 that settlers began to arrive in central Missouri. Of course, trappers and traders had passed through before but had not stayed. However, they must have taken stories about the area back to Tennessee and Kentucky, for it is from these parts that the first settlers came.
"In 1831 Lamon Short, whose wife was a carpenter, and Enoch Enloe, Sr., whose wife also was a carpenter, sold their belongings and their farms in central Tennessee and started for Henry County, Missouri. Exactly what route they took to Missouri is not known. It is probable that they crossed the Mississippi River at Cairo and planned to go on to Henry County.
"Late one evening a wheel broke on one of the wagons belonging to the Short family; they were forced to stop and make camp. In this vicinity Lamon Short found a spring and a bee tree. He noted the soil and large oak trees and decided that this was a good place to stop. It was late spring, and it was time to put out crops if there was to be food for the next winter. He saw that there was some open space about a mile to the southwest of their camp where he could plant. Also, there was plenty of game: deer, opossums, wild turkeys, squirrels, and rabbits.
"In the meantime, his brother-in-law, Enoch Enloe, Sr., decided that he too had traveled far enough and was ready to settle down. Soon other families began to arrive from Tennessee: Leslies, Hunters, VanPools, Simpsons, Morrows, and Starks. They settled mainly in Cole and Moniteau counties. These are the families that were prominent in the early days of the new settlement. However, it was a man by the name of Buckner Russell, from whom the town took its name." ~ Origin and Early History of Russellville from the Sesquicentennial History Book
"Russellville, in the Moreau Township, the second town in size and importance in Cole County, is eighteen miles southwest of Jefferson City, the county seat and state capital, and 142 miles from St. Louis on the Lebanon Branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. It has four churches, a modern two-story brick school building (where are employed three teachers), an excellent weekly newspaper, flouring mill, bank, large modern brick hotel, livery stable, and, in fact, every convenience and advantage that can be found in a town of much greater pretensions. The merchants are wide awake and progressive, their unusually large stock and low prices drawing to the town trade for many miles in all directions. Most of the business houses are large, modern brick structures. Its healthful location is on the watershed between the North and South Moreau. Its customers are the prosperous and thrifty farmers who till the rich bottoms of the Moreaus, and the splendid wheat-growing and fruit-bearing ridges that lie between these streams. In addition to this great source of wealth (sufficient to support a small city) there is, underlying the surface around town, immense deposits of high-grade lead ore, which is at present undeveloped, but one, the Boaz Mine, which has already added to the wealth of the county more than $50,000. This great source of wealth will unquestionably, when it secures the attention of capital and mining experts, be the means of raising Russellville to one of the largest and most prosperous towns in an eminent degree. It is their broad and well directed efforts that has placed Russellville so far in the lead of other trade centers in the county and made it a most desirable town in which to locate, for those wishing to reap the advantages of a prosperous and growing town, and at the same time enjoy the social and educational advantages of a highly moral and intellectual community." ~ the Cole County Illustrated Sketch Book and Directory of Jefferson City and Cole County