County of city: Schuyler County
Location of city: Just N, of dead center in the county; crossroads of US-63 and US-136
Population: 728
Elevation: 942 ft (287 m)
"Lancaster was selected the county seat on June 2, 1845. The name was selected by James Lusk who donated the money for the purpose of making Lancaster the county seat. Another reference says Robert Neely named the village in honor of his native town in Lancaster, Ohio." ~ Williams, History of N.E. Missouri, Vol. I, p. 603-4; Schuyler County Atlas, p. 10; History of Adair County, Goodspeed, pp. 620- 2
"Lancaster is a city in Schuyler County, Missouri, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 728. It is the county seat of Schuyler County.
"Lancaster is part of the Kirksville Micropolitan Statistical Area.
"A post office called Lancaster has been in operation since 1846. According to one tradition, the community was named after Lancaster, Ohio, the former home of a first settler.
"The William P. Hall House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975." ~ Wikipedia
"Capital of one of the foremost livestock farming counties in Missouri. Lancaster was laid out as the seat of the newly organized Schuyler County, 1845. Named for Rev. War Gen. Philip J. Schuyler, the county was a part of territory ceded by Iowa, Sac, and Fox tribes in 1824. Pioneer legislator John Lusk named the town for Lancaster, Pa.
"In the Civil War, troops of both sides and guerrilla bands overran the county. Union forces occupied Lancaster at times. Sharp skirmishes occurred here on Nov. 24, 1861 and on Sept. 7, 1862. With the close of the war, prosperity returned. In 1868, the North Missouri R.R. (Wabash) reached the county and in 1872 the Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska (C.B. & Q.) came to Lancaster.
"Here William P. (Diamond Billy) Hall had his internationally known horse and mule market. Sometimes called "Horse King of the World," he supplied thousands of horses and mules to the British in the Boer War and to the Allies in World War I. Following a brief career as a circus operator, he also maintained a circus equipment and a wild animal brokerage business here.
"Lancaster, here in the Glacial Plains of north Missouri, serves as seat of justice for a leading sheep raising county of the State. The county, first permanently settled by Mason Stice, 1834, was long familiar to explorers, bee hunters, and surveyors. Its first town, Tippecanoe, settled in the late 1830's, once stood some two miles southeast.
"Through Schuyler County, following the Great Divide separating tributaries of the Missouri and Mississippi, ran the Bee Trace, noted pioneer trail. The northern limits of the county were not known until the U. S. Supreme Court, in 1851, made the boundary between Missouri and Iowa the 1824 Iowa, Sac, and Fox Indian purchase line. Historic Salt River and several forks and divisions of the Fabius River rise in Schuyler County.
"Lancaster is the birthplace of novelist Rupert Hughes, inventor Howard R. Hughes (father of motion picture producer Howard R. Hughes); and agriculturalist John R. Rippey, the first secretary of the Missouri State Fair. Financier Tom K. Smith was born in nearby Glenwood; and educator and editor Glenn Frank in Queen City to the south." ~ State Historical Society of Missouri