Monday, October 13, 2008
Turnback Creek
I travel I-44 between Springfield and Joplin fairly often, and I always used to wonder, when I would see the "Turnback Creek" sign near Halltown, about the curiously named stream that meanders beneath the highway bridge there. I imagined that perhaps the creek got its name because of the many "turnbacks" of its circuitous route. Come to find out, the course that the stream follows has nothing to do with how it got its name. In the fall of 1831, so the story goes, a group of settlers from Tennessee, led by John Williams, went out from Springfield in search of new land and camped on the creek. While there, some in the group decided to turn back, presumably because of threatening weather or illness, and spend the winter in Springfield. Williams, though, ventured on and built a home about three miles southeast of present-day Mount Vernon, becoming the first permanent white settler in what became Lawrence County. A hundred years later, in 1931 the event and the location were commemorated with a large celebration, and a small monument was placed at the home site.
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9 comments:
I've driven past that creek many times and wondered if someone got fed up and went home. Thanks for clearing that up, Larry. Suzanne Arruda
Reading through your old posts; this one caught my eye because I have crossed this creek many times on Highway 96. Thanks for the information.
Do you have sources you can share?
One of the main sources for the Turnback story is the History of Lawrence County, published in the late 1800s. Offhand, I don't recall my other sources, but that would be a good place to start if you wanted to read more about Turnback. I also had an article in the December 2001 issue of The Ozarks Mountaineer about this.
Thank you for posting this information. My grandfather and gr. GF were from Turnback. Carol Bridge
The story I heard from my grandmother, Vergie Robertson O'Neal, was that some of our ancestors ( the Jackson branch) were part of a wagon train going from Tennessee to Kansas. The train reached what was later named Turnback Creek in the late fall. The creek eas very high due to heavy rains and a crossing could not be found. The party "turned back" and settled in the Republic area. I understood this occurred around 1840. It could have been 1831, or there could have been more than one group that "turned back".
Tom O'Neal, yessir, thats the story I was told. My Grandfather had a farm that bordered the creek. Sawm in it many times, hunted its bottoms in the 60s and 70s...Hoss Dugger
i was told that the mosie vandergrift was on the wagons that came throw there and it was named turnback creek becouse people turned back couse of floods and some stayed a road ot the flooding then settled and there are still mane vandergrifts living in that area.
I was always intrigued by the name Turnback Creek and knew it was also the name of a township in Lawrence County. When I wrote the first book in my contemporary fantasy series, I wanted to set it in a fictional town of Turnback, Missouri. But I needed a more isolated region of the state than Lawrence County. So I set it in the fictional town of Turn Back in the eastern Ozarks (the St. Francois Mountains). My Turn Back was named because there was a soaring rock wall on the other side of the river so the road couldn't cross the river at that point, and the road circled around and turned back.
Interesting, Shirley. Always good to hear from another author.
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