Note: The following article containing a history of the first 50 years of Marceline was reproduced from the 1938 Golden Jubilee edition of the Marceline News. Floyd C. Shoemaker, secretary of the State Historical Society of Missouri, has written the following interesting and complete history of Marceline. Mr. Shoemaker is a Linn County product, having been born and reared at Bucklin. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. F. C. Shoemaker at Bucklin and he is well known in Marceline. Mr. Shoemaker is recognized generally as the best authority in the state on Missouri history. Closely identified with the story of the great expansive movement of the Santa Fe railroad in the 1880’s and 1890’s, is the history of Marceline, located in the southeast corner of Linn County, Missouri. Comparatively little has been written, however, about the history of this Missouri railroad city, the “History of Linn County of 1912” containing probably the most complete account. In 1886 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway the ancestor of the great “Santa Fe system,” was making plans to build a line direct from Kansas City to Chicago, and then on west. Past experiences had shown the railway men that it was necessary to have division or terminal points at certain specified intervals, but in this proposed Kansas City-Chicago route the land stretched one hundred miles northeast from Kansas City in open prairie, settled only by scattered farmers and their families. So the officials and engineers of the railroad went to work, buying up land, and before the end of the year, surveys were begun. A corporation known as the Santa Fe Land, Town, and Improvement Company was formed, to own and take charge of the sale of the land for a proposed city to be used as a division point. Two Kansas men, Joseph Hemmings, and D. W. Finney, an ex-lieutenant governor of that state, were put in charge of the business of the company. In 1887 construction work was begun on the railroad and the next year, on January 28, 1888, the first town lot was sold in the newly-platted division point of the railway, which was to be known as Marceline. The town was incorporated on March 6, 1888, almost fifty years after Linn County itself was organized in 1837. Temporary officers were appointed to serve until the first election. These officers were A. D. Reynolds, mayor; J. H. Perrin, W. S. Thomas, George Levan, and J. E. Dorsey, aldermen, and Joseph Turner, as marshal. At the first regular election held in Marceline, J. W. McFall, a lawyer, was elected mayor; J. A. Runyon, marshal; Jeff Hurt, police judge; C. D. Watkins, city attorney, Joseph Hemmings, clerk, and Dr. Garner Ladow, W. S. Thomas, Dr. J. H. Perrin, and J. E. Waller, aldermen. Marceline received its name at the request of one of the directors of the new railroad, whose wife bore the somewhat Spanish name of “Marcelina”. So with a change of the last vowel, this became the name of the new railroad city. The growth of Marceline was reminiscent of western boom towns, and indeed its early appearance was that of a western settlement. There was an air of bustling and hurrying about the whole area, new buildings sprang up almost overnight it seemed, and the ambitious and adventuresome mixture of people that usually make up the population of new boom towns soon moved in. Excerpts from the Brookfield Gazette of this time tell us something of the growth of the town. On December 15, 1887, a notice from Marceline says that “the engineers who have been laying off town lots left on Tuesday, having staked out several hundred acres – enough to supply the demand until milder weather… Lots will not be offered for sale for a week or two yet, but parties are taking possession of them, intending to pay whatever price is put on them.” The notice also describes the depot and round house being constructed at that time by the railroad company, and notes that “parties representing about every kind of business are here, or are coming as soon as they can buy lots. We look for a grand rush with the opening of spring.” Some weeks later, on January 19, 1888, the paper reports that ‘the sale of lots will begin in a few days. Gov. Finney arrived on Tuesday and will open an office and commence business early next week.” This same paper mentions that prices have been put on the lots ranging from $40 to $400. By this time, too, five stores were completed, and a good many smaller buildings were in the process of construction. Two weeks later, on February 2, another item tells of the establishment of the Santa Fe station-agent, train-dispatcher and telegraph operator in the new offices, and the beginning of operations at the depot. Prices on lots had gone up, too… “choice lots selling from $50 to $150 advance on first prices.” The post office was in operation in the office of the “Town Company” by this time, and persons were directed to send their mail to “Marceline, Linn county, Mo.” Buildings were, the paper reported, “going up in all directions.” The new city grew so rapidly that six months after the first lot was sold it boasted a population of 2,500. It soon outgrew the original plat, indeed, and the Marceline Town and Land Company‘s addition was laid out. Since that time there have been several other additions platted. Marceline’s present population, as shown by the United States Census of 1930, is 3,555, making it the second largest town in Linn County, surpassed only by Brookfield. This number, however, shows a small decrease from the 1920 figure of 3,760, but the percentage of decrease is virtually the same as the decrease for the same period in the population of the entire county. With the development of the railroad a need for fuel along the line became apparent- After some prospecting, Captain C. … Continue reading History of Marceline