Bloomfield, MO

Bloomfield is Stoddard County's seat, five miles north of Dexter on Missouri Route 25. The first permanent settlement came in 1824 at the site of an earlier Native American community, and the town was platted in 1835. In September 1864, Bloomfield was reduced to ashes during the Civil War. The town returned to the county map after the war, carrying a courthouse role and a history that still reaches beyond its compact streets.

Bloomfield also gave the Stars and Stripes newspaper its first home. The paper's first issue appeared here on November 9, 1861, and the National Stars and Stripes Museum and Library now holds more than 10,000 square feet of exhibits on the military newspaper and the armed forces. Civil War markers spread across the surrounding area, while Route 25 links Bloomfield with Dexter and other Stoddard County towns. Bloomfield's present-day map joins county offices, museum visitors, schools, farm roads, and a newspaper born in wartime. Its wartime newspaper legacy remains unusually visible.