Montrose was founded in 1871, spurred by the building of the railroad through that territory. The town was named after Montrose, in Scotland. A post office called Montrose has been in operation since 1870.
Among the early industries represented in the newly incorporated town were a flour mill, a grain elevator, several grain warehouses, a bank, two hotels, two hardware and implement stores, two furniture stores, three dry goods stores, four blacksmiths, two barber shops, three millinery shops, two newspapers, and a livery stable.
The Montrose Savings Bank was organized June 4, 1895 and began operating the following day. The first directors were R.H. Dugan, E.W. Blew, O.P. Wilson, Henry Welling, Nick Erhart, Joseph DeBold and W.S. Winkler.
Passages that mention Montrose, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Henry County, Missouri1919 · page 430Read the page →
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In 1872, when the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad was being built through Henry County, Missouri, the town of Montrose was laid out and the typical American railroad village soon began to rise on the site of the new town. About this time thrifty German farmers, hearing of the beautiful, mild climate of Missouri and of the fertile plains and prairies around Montrose, began to come down from Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and the less favored parts of Missouri, and Montrose and the adjacent parts of Henry County began to assume the appearance of a German settlement.
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History of Henry County, Missouri1919 · page 535Read the page →
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He was reared to farm life and being of a bright, studious nature, he received a good common school education. For some years he was a teacher in the public schools and taught at Humansville, Missouri, prior to locating in Montrose, where he was first employed as a clerk in Sol Kahn's general store when the town of Montrose was in its infancy. In 1885 he engaged in the grain and lumber business at Montrose and was very successful until his death, April 8, 1903. He organized the Anderson Lumber Company and at the time of his death he was manager of
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Montrose, 1870 to 1920
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System, Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress) and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
