Granby, MO

Granby grew out of a lead discovery at Gum Spring Branch in 1850, when William Foster recognized galena ore on Madison Vickery's property. Vickery opened the first shaft, the Granby Stampede followed two years later, and the town drew miners, a railroad, and a smelting company. By 1869, the mining camps had become a town with over thirty retail businesses; for decades, the Granby Mining and Smelting Company anchored the local economy. The mines closed in the early 1950s as the ore ran out, but the old story remains close to the surface.

The Granby Museum on Main Street, maintained by the Granby Historical Society, holds mining tools, photographs, and local records, while Old Mining Town Days brings a summer festival back to the calendar. Granby is still a Newton County city, but its map is easiest to read through the mine shaft, railroad, museum, and festival that carry the mining town's name forward. City infrastructure upgrades now sit alongside the museum and festival as a newer layer of the same map.