Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Pilot Grove received its name from an extensive grove of hickory trees surrounding a watering place, a welcome sight to travelers across the featureless prairie.

Two trails met here. One from the Missouri River to the Southwest (Georgetown Road), and the other, heading Northwest to Independence, skirting the Chouteau land grant.

The first recorded settlement was one mile south at the Mt. Vernon Branch, around 1820. Here the Cumberland Presbyterians began a brush arbor church and cemetery, with a school, mill, Methodist Church, Harris Store to follow. John McCutcheon was the first Postmaster, appointed in 1833. Residents along the Georgetown Road saw Gen. Lyon's Union march from Boonville to defeat at Springfield in 1961; "Bloody Bill" Anderson's raid Oct. 1863, and the arrival of the MKT Railroad in 1873, a visit from the "Orphan Train" in the 1920s and a munitions train wreck May 6, 1945.

Commercial development moved north toward the railhead when Pilot Grove became a platted town, formally chartered in 1873, on farmland of Samuel Roe (Postmaster 1858-1872).

The present Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and former Presbyterian and Christian Church congregations date from this time as well as the old city hall and calaboose.

The business district boasted banks, shops, and two newspapers, the "Pilot Grove Bee" and a German weekly. The present recreational park was home to a CCC Camp built in 1939 during the depression years.

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