The place names of four river counties in eastern Missouri

Abstract

"...In 1928 the study of Missouri place-names was started at the University of Missouri. Graduate English students interested in the history and linguistics of the names in their own state have chosen to write theses covering from some two to seven counties. Soon dissertations dealing with the remainder of the place names in Missouri will be finished. Inspired by the work Dr. Dorrance had done with the Missouri French in the Ste. Genevieve District, the research earlier students had accomplished with Missouri place names, and the book E. M. Violette had written about the History of Missouri, I knew before I entered the graduate school that I would write a place name thesis for my M.A. dissertation. The study would neither be about my home counties in western Missouri, for Miss Bernice Johnson had already done them; nor would it deal with the prosaic counties just east of my home. Clear across Missouri around old St. Charles lies a region that has not only known the taste of Spanish, French, and American rule, but still possesses names flavored with the spice of French, German, and Spanish. There quaint German houses open directly on the street; there rambling French stairs climb to second-story front entrances. St. Charles, once descriptively called 'Les Petites Cotes' by the early French voyageurs, still stands on rolling hills.In the same section are commons which were originally named for a foreign king. Down in the southeastern tip of Warren County is Daniel Boone's Missouri tomb. A few miles away in St. Charles County lives the tree under which he rendered his decisions as syndic. In Franklin County across the Missouri lies a prehistoric Indian Paint Mine, said to be the only one of its kind found in North America. Here too, is the famed Tavern Rock mentioned by the earliest white travellers down the rivers. In Lincoln County the Sink Hole remains as a reminder of the illustrious Black Hawk..."--Pages 3-4.