Sturgeon, MO

Sturgeon is a Boone County city that exists because six local men put money behind a railroad depot. When the North Missouri Railroad chose this site in 1856, they agreed to pay $6,000 if the company placed a depot here. The town took the railroad superintendent Isaac Sturgeon’s name, while nearby Prairie City was left without a depot and eventually absorbed. Houses from Buena Vista were even moved to the new town by ox-drawn wagon. Sturgeon later became a major St. Louis-bound shipping point.

The rail era left a town with a strong agricultural and civic center. Federal forces occupied Sturgeon during the Civil War, and the city once hosted a Court of Common Pleas whose jurisdiction reached across four counties. Today roads connect Sturgeon with Columbia, Centralia, Mexico, and Moberly, while farms, home businesses, and nearby Amish country keep the local map broader than the city limits. Sturgeon’s local scoop is the deal behind the depot: the town’s first big infrastructure project was a group purchase that moved a settlement onto the tracks.