Keytesville, MO

Keytesville is a city in and the county seat of Chariton County, Missouri, United States. The 2020 census counted 440 residents. Keytesville is the hometown of U.S. Army General Maxwell D. Confederate General Sterling Price, who attacked Keytesville during an unsuccessful cavalry raid across his home state, had previously operated a hotel there. Education in the community dates to before the Civil War, but records indicating the exact date were lost in an 1861 fire at the county clerk's office. Taken together, these details give a newcomer a usable picture of Keytesville, where its history, geography, and current gathering places meet. For Keytesville, the memorable detail is the way older history and current gathering places share one local map.

The town is named for James Keyte, an Englishman and Methodist preacher who purchased a large parcel of land in 1830 and, two years later, donated fifty acres of it to Chariton County to establish a seat of county government. Until then, county business had been conducted from "Old Chariton," a village near the confluence of the Chariton and Missouri Rivers that was plagued by disease-spreading mosquitoes and subject to repeated flooding. Keytesville is located at the intersection of U.S. Route 24 and Missouri Route 5.