Oregon County

     Here in the extreme southern Missouri Ozarks, Oregon County was organized in 1845, and named for the Oregon territory of the Far West. One of 11 counties along the Arkansas border, Oregon is in a region claimed by the Osage until 1808. Charles Hatcher was the first settler, probably in 1809. Early pioneers were largely from Ky., and Tenn., with a few from the East.
     The first county seat, Thomasville, was laid out on Eleven Point River in 1845 on a site given by John and Matilda Thomas. in 1859, the county seat was moved by law to a more central location and Alton, a new town, was founded. In the Civil War, Union troops burned the courthouse there 1863. Through the war the county, largely pro-Southern, suffered guerrilla raids and troop movement. A post war outlaw band was routed by the county militia in 1868.
     Thayer, the larges town in the county, was founded as railway division point, 1881, on the newly built St. Louis, Ft. Scott & Memphis (Frisco) R. R. Early stations were Koshkonong, St. Elmo, and American.
     Noted for its splendid scenery, Oregon is a lumbering and livestock farming county. In an arc, through the county, runs lovely spring-fed Eleven Point River. Hundreds of prehistoric Indian mounds were found along this river and its tributaries.
     In northeastern Oregon and in adjoining counties lies the historic Irish Wilderness where in 1858, Father John Hogan founded a Catholic colony. By 1859, forty families, many of them Irish, settled the area. A colony chapel was built s.e. of Wilderness village in Oregon County near the Ripley County line. Civil War activities ended the colony venture, and the area is now part of Clark National Forest, founded in 1930's.
     Near Koshkonong is famed Grand Gulf, an extensive chasm made by a collapsed cave. The county's large, beautiful springs, Blue, Boze, Turner, Falling, Thomasson, and Greer, were all pioneer millsites. At Greer, third largest spring in the Ozarks, power was sent by cable to the mill on the hilltop from a turbine at the spring in the valley. The second largest spring in the Ozarks, Mammoth, is south of Thayer, in Arkansas.

Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1961.