Tebbetts, MO

Tebbetts is a small farming community in southern Callaway County, less than a mile from the Missouri River and about eight miles east of Jefferson City along Route 94. The village sits in the river bottoms near the Katy Trail, with hills rising around the road and fields. Its railroad-era beginning came in 1893, when Martin L. Sentman gave the Missouri, Kansas and Eastern Railroad a right-of-way and laid out a village. The post office moved there from Hord's Landing in 1894, and the community took its name from railroad officer Louis Bates Tebbetts.

Early Tebbetts held general stores, a drugstore, a hotel, a bank, a blacksmith shop, and a grain elevator. The nearby Cote Sans Dessein site marks Callaway County's first settlement along the Missouri River, while Oakley Chapel AME Church and cemetery preserve the history of the Black community on the ridge above the village. The Katy Trail and the river bottoms still shape the local map, with farm roads and Route 94 connecting Tebbetts to Jefferson City and the rest of Callaway County. The place remains small, but its setting is tied to several big Missouri stories: rail, river, farming, and migration.