Pumpkin Center

I mentioned Pumpkin Center, a crossroads community in Dallas County (MO) when I wrote about colorful names of Ozarks towns and villages a few weeks ago. It's located about five miles north of Buffalo on Highway 73 at its intersection with Highway 64. I used to pass through Pumpkin Center occasionally (depending on what route I took) when I'd drive to Jefferson City or Columbia from southwest Missouri, and I often wondered about the curious name of the place.

Moser's Directory of Missouri Places doesn't say much about Pumpkin Center and nothing at all about how it got its quaint name. However, I ran across a 1934 Springfield News and Leader article recently that gives a little bit of info about the place and how it got its name.

At the time of the article, J. M. "Uncle Josh" Duff and his wife operated a general store at the crossroads. In fact, according to newspaper, Duff had "the only store in Pumpkin Center, the only filling station, the only home, the only barn, the only well." In other words, "Pumpkin Center belongs to Uncle Josh."

The store served as a community trading post where farmers from the surrounding area traded cream, eggs, and produce for other home necessities. It was also a popular loafing spot "during the slack season," and often tourists would stop in just to visit the rustic place.

When Josh was away from the store, his wife, Nancy, operated it, but she didn't want to be called "Aunt Nancy," and she wasn't crazy about the tourists snapping pictures of the store and its owners.

Duff had bought the store about 1924 from A. L. Hause, who had gotten it from Charles Cussack, who in turn had acquired it from Robert Miller, the original owner. When Miller built the store, the house, and the barn about 1908, he was at a loss as to what to call the crossroads community. The forerunners to the present-day highways that intersect at the place were just dirt roads that would become muddy messes during wet weather. A neighbor, remarking on all the rain the area had been getting, supposedly said to Miller, "You might as well call it Pumpkin Center; this is a pumpkin growing country."

When Highway 64 was built some years after the store was established and was routed past the store, gasoline pumps were installed, but the place never became a booming metropolis. Today, there is still not much there other than a crossroads store and station.