County: Carter County
Location of courthouse: Main St. & Oliver St., Van Buren
Location of county: one county from southern border in the SE quadrant of state; crossroads of US-60 & MO-21
Organized: March 10, 1859
Named after: Zimri Carter, a local pioneer
County seat: Van Buren
Elevation (highest): 309 meters (1,014 feet)
Population: 6,169 (2017)
"It was formed from parts of Ripley, Shannon, and Wayne Counties on March 10, 1859. It was named for the first settler, Zimri A. Carter (see Carter Creek). Adam Lane, of Ripley, John Buford, of Reynolds, and D. C. Reed, of Shannon Counties, who were appointed to locate the seat of justice, met at the home of James Brown, (who was a pioneer settler of Oregon County, and for whom Brown Hollow in Oregon Co., was named) on the first Monday in April 1859, and selected Van Buren, the old county seat of Ripley County for the seat of justice.
"The old log courthouse erected in 1833 was used until 1867, when a frame building was erected, which very recently has been replaced by a good modern structure." ~ Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, Conrad, 1901, Vol. 1, pp. 508, 509.
"The county was attached to the County of Ripley, for the purpose of representation in the General Assembly. The first member sent to the General Assembly from the county was William Lawson in 1864, and he served until 1870 when he was succeeded by F. M. Coleman...The county is divided into five townships, named respectively, Carter, Jackson, Johnson, Kelly and Pike." ~ Place Names in Southern Border Counties of Missouri, 1945, Pottenger,
"Van Buren, settled as the seat of Ripley County, organized, 1833, became the seat of Carter County when it was organized from parts of Ripley and Shannon counties, 1859.
"Nearby Big Spring State Park, 4582 acres of Ozark grandeur, founded, 1924, features the natural beauty of the largest single-orifice, fresh water spring in the U.S.1
"Big Spring has a maximum flow of 840 million gallons every 24 hours and a daily average of 250 million gallons. The spring discharges about 175 tons of limestone in solution daily. 433 feet above sea level, at the base of a 500-foot cliff, the spring gushes through an impeded opening from an underground stream bed and flows 1,000 feet to Current River, famed spring-formed, spring-fed Ozark fishing stream. Of the 69 springs in the U.S. having a daily flow of 64,600,000 gallons or more, 11 are in the Missouri Ozarks.
"During the Civil War the Union Army of Southeast Missouri wintered in the area, 1862-63. The Snider House, west of town, is the site of one of several skirmishes.
"Carter County, whose main industries are lumbering and recreation, is almost evenly divided by Current River. Called La Rivière Courante by early French trappers, it has long been a highway and food source for the area. Early Indians found it attractive, for 36 villages and camps have been found in the area. Thousands of logs came down the river to nearby Chicopee in the 1890's and early 1900's, during the lumbering boom.
"The town of Grandin, to the south, one-time limbering center of Missouri, was laid out in 1888 by the Missouri Lumber and mining Co. Over 100,000 acres of Carter County's virgin forest land were bought and 15 to 20 thousand acres were harvested a year. From the mid-1890's to 1909 when the forest was depleted and the mills closed, production at Grandin's mills exceeded 60 million board feet of lumber a year. With the sawmills closed, Grandin and other mill towns in the area became like ghost towns.
"The natural forest resource of the area is being restored through local, state, and national effort. Much of Carter County lies in Clark National Forest, founded, 1933-37." ~ State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Department, 1955