Lowry City

When I used to write for Show Me the Ozarks Magazine, I sometimes was assigned to profile doctors or other leaders in the community in what was called a "Meet the Doctors" or "Meet the Educators" feature, or whatever the case might be. Sometimes these so-called profiles were actually paid advertisements. For instance, one of the local hospitals might occasionally buy advertisement from the magazine in the form of profiles of the physicians affiliated with that particular hospital. I would interview the doctors and profile them, but I was expected to show them in the best light possible, since the hospitals were paying for the copy.

Back in the early part of the 20th century, the Springfield Leader used to do the same thing, but the subjects of their profiles were not people but rather towns that surrounded Springfield. The profiles were paid for by the town's businesses that were featured in the profiles. Even though these articles were meant to promote the town in question rather than provide an objective view of the town, they usually imparted quite a bit of interesting information about the place.

Over the next few weeks and maybe the next few months, I plan to write about some of the places profiled in the Leader during the early 20th century, although, in many cases, I'll probably consult other sources besides the Leader in order to give a more complete, well-rounded view of the town in question. First up is Lowry City, Missouri.

Lowry City was platted in March 1871 eight miles north of Osceola in northern St. Clair County in anticipation of being a stop along the C & M Branch (I think the C & M stood for Clinton and Montrose) of the Tebo and Neosho Railroad, which was being laid through the area, and the new town was named a couple of months later, even before the railroad was completed. The man who owned the land on which the town was laid out named it after a businessman for whom he'd worked in Indiana. A post office was established at Lowry City about the same time it was named, and the Osceola Herald featured an article in June of 1871 about the new town while buildings were still going up apace. The Herald declared that, due to its favorable location on the prairie and its proximity to the railroad, Lowry City would "certainly make a good town."  

The new town grew rapidly, and by the latter part of 1871, it already had two physicians, two dentists, and about twenty businesses. In 1880, Lowry City boasted a population of 195 people, and it still had about the same number of businesses that it had in late 1871. By 1899, the population had increased to about 500 people. The town had at least four churches, two newspapers, a flour mill, and a sawmill, as well as a good number of basic businesses like general stores and drugstores. 

At the time Lowry City was profiled in the Springfield Leader in 1912, its population had decreased slightly from ten years earlier to about 460 people, although the article in the Leader erroneously estimated it at about twice that figure. The town had "splendid schools and excellent churches," and its citizens had just voted a bond for a "twentieth-century high school building." Improved farmland surrounding Lowry City was going for about $40 to $50 an acre. 

Lowry City's population has held fairly steady over the past 110 years. Its current population is slightly over 600, and at no time during the past century has it dipped below 437 or above 728.