Springfield, Missouri

City: Springfield

County: Greene

State: Missouri

Lat/Long: 37.2000, -93.2833

Located in southwest Missouri, 145 miles south southeast of Kansas City in the Ozark region, Springfield is the county seat of Greene County. White settlers began arriving to the area in 1829, and residents laid out the village in 1835. It became the county seat in 1837, and in February 1838, the Missouri General Assembly incorporated it as a town. Over the next two decades, the population grew from 300 to around 2,000. In 1851, the Missouri legislature incorporated Springfield as a city, and factories, mercantile houses, churches, and schools increased in number and variety. By the Civil War, Springfield was the commercial and political hub for southwest Missouri. The war temporarily halted the city's prosperity, as it suffered under Union Army occupation from February 1862 until the defeat of the Confederacy.

History of Greene County, Missouri (St. Louis: Western Historical, 1883), 731, 732, 733, 737, 738, 739-40; Webster's New Geographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1988), 1149; Frank R. Abate, ed., American Places Dictionary (Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1994), 3:682.