The Sturgeon post office opened in 1857, the earliest record of the town by name.
2020 census: 907169 years
How did Sturgeon get its name?
Sturgeon was named for Isaac H. Sturgeon, superintendent of the North Missouri Railroad.
More on the name
Colonel W. F. Switzler speculated that the depot was considered in Sturgeon because it bore the name of the railroad magnate, but six citizens who paid six thousand dollars finalized the deal.
Sturgeon was laid out in 1856 very near to and eventually including the town of Prairie City. The town was incorporated in 1859 with Housen Canada as the first mayor and rechartered in 1875. It was named for Isaac H. Sturgeon, superintendent of the North Missouri Railroad. Colonel W. F. Switzler speculated that the depot was considered in Sturgeon because it bore the name of the railroad magnate, but six citizens who paid six thousand dollars finalized the deal. The first school-house was built in 1857, and in 1882 the white and colored schools had 301 students with an average daily attendance of 187. The first church, built in 1859, was the Methodist Episcopal Church South, with the Masonic lodge located above. The first early industry in Sturgeon was the broom factory, established in 1878, of S. A. Fretwell. The brooms were made of broom corn grown in the area, and brushes made of imp…
Passages that mention Sturgeon, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The bench and bar of Boone County, Missouri1916 · page 137Read the page →
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Col. Turner once represented a lady who sued the North Mis¬ souri railroad for damages, on account of a fall that she received at Sturgeon, while endeavoring to get off a passenger train, the train being started suddenly before she had time to alight. The train men, one after another, testified that the train was stopped at Sturgeon on this occasion much longer than the usual time ; and that this was due to the large amount of express that was unloaded that day at that station. The defendant closed its case late in the afternoon ; and,
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The bench and bar of Boone County, Missouri1916 · page 126Read the page →
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General Guitar told the following of his experience during the Civil War. I learned of a number of men in and around Sturgeon, who desired to join the Union army, so I went to Sturgeon to enroll them, and found eighty young men: I had given orders for a supply of guns, ammunition and blankets to be sent to Sturgeon from the government headquarters at St. Louis. To my surprise, nothing of the kind was there, and I could not get any message from the quarter¬ master s office. Of course, our country was not prepared for war,
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
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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 Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System 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.
