The Place:
From the Wikipedia page for Joplin, Missouri:
(link)
Joplin, officially known as the City of Joplin, is a city in Jasper and Newton counties in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Missouri. The bulk of the city is in Jasper County, while the southern portion is in Newton County. Joplin is the largest city in Jasper County - even though it is not the county seat, and it is the 12th most-populous city in the state. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 50,150.[6] The city covers an area of 35.69 square miles (92.41 km2) on the outer edge of the Ozark Mountains. Joplin is the main hub of the three-county Joplin-Miami, Missouri-Oklahoma Metro area, which is home to 210,077 people making it the 5th largest metropolitan area in Missouri. In 2011, the city was ravaged by a violent EF5 tornado.
Lead was discovered in the Joplin Creek Valley before the Civil War, but only after the war did significant development take place. By 1871, numerous mining camps sprang up in the valley and resident John C. Cox filed a plan for a city on the east side of the valley.
Cox named his village Joplin City after the spring and creek nearby, which had been named for the Reverend Harris G. Joplin, who settled upon its banks circa 1840.
Carthage resident Patrick Murphy filed a plan for a city on the opposite side of the valley and named it Murphysburg. As the nearest sheriff was in Carthage, frontier lawlessness abounded in Joplin. The historic period was referred to as the "Reign of Terror". The cities eventually merged into Union City, but when the merger was found illegal, the cities split. Murphy suggested that a combined city be named Joplin. The cities merged again on March 23, 1873, this time permanently, as the City of Joplin.
My commentary:
Joplin is the home to Missouri Southern University. It was also hit by a major tornado in 2011 that killed 158 people, the scars of which can still be seen. Bonnie and Clyde spent several weeks in Joplin and the house the stayed in is listed in the National Register.
The Person:
From a Wikitree page for Harris Joplin:
(link)
John C Cox named his village Joplin City after the spring and creek nearby. The namesake comes from the Reverend Harris G Joplin who founded the first Methodist congregation in the area in mid-century.
Rev Harris Joplin: In 1839, the Rev Harris Joplin, a Methodist minister, came to Jasper County from Greene County and built a cabin where now stands the Joplin Children's Home. There he entered about eighty acres of land lying on either side of the little stream which wends its way from the big Springs down to Joplin creek, which took its name because its headwaters ran through the reverend gentleman's farm (the course of Joplin creek at its head was changed by the digging of Picher's ditch). The Reverend Joplin organized at his cabin a Methodist church and conducted services here on Sundays until 1845, when he returned to Greene county, where he died in 1847, ignorant of the fact that his name and deeds would be perpetuated in the history of the great mining industry of Jasper County.
. . . the Rev Harris Joplin (who) located in the western part of the county on the banks of the creek which was named for him [Joplin Creek Valley] and where afterwards was commenced the mining activities of the future metropolis of southwest Missouri.
Mr Joplin was the pioneer Methodist and labored among the people of West Jasper from 1840 until about 1845, when he moved to Green County where he died in 1847. During his sojourn here he organized a Methodist church which worshiped at his cabin, but after his departure meetings were discontinued and the church rolls and other evidence of its existence was lost.