The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗Hamilton owes its existence largely to the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad.
Prior to 1854 the area around Hamilton was unsettled prairie land belonging to the U.S. Government. With the coming of the railroad, the Hamilton Town Company was formed to develop a tract of land along the rails.
At first, the name Prairie City was intended for the new community. However, Albert Gallatin Davis, a key member of the Town Company, chose Hamilton instead, in honor of two early Americans, Founding Father and first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, and Joseph Hamilton, an early American lawyer and military leader killed at the Battle of the Thames during the War of 1812.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Start Hamilton’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Hamilton’s history is told.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Hamilton
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Hamilton, decade by decade
2000
1 historic place in Hamilton
1 place in Hamilton is on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Where they are
When they were listed
Then & now
When neighbors add old photos, retakes from the same spot appear here side by side.
Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (6). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.