Dent County, Missouri: History and Information

Dent County, Missouri

Dent County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Salem
Year Organized: 1851
Square Miles: 754

Court House:

400 North Main Street
County Courthouse
Salem, MO 65560-1436

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named for Lewis Dent, pioneer settler.

Demographics:

History of Dent County

Dent was formed from Shannon and Crawford Counties and organized in 1851. The county is located in the south central part of the state and is bounded by Phelps and Crawford Counties on the north; on the east by Iron and Reynolds Counties; on the south by Shannon and Texas Counties, and on the west by Phelps and Texas Counties. The county was reorganized in 1855. Named in honor of Lewis Dent, the first representative. The Dent family were among the early settlers in this region. Mark Dent, Lewis Dent's father, came to Missouri in 1803 when it was still French territory and settled at what is now Bismarck in St. Francois County. Because of Indian attacks, he returned to Virginia and in 1811 returned to Missouri. His oldest son Lewis was born in Virginia in 1807 and remained there until about 1835 when he came to Dent County. A letter in the possession of the Dent family written by Mark Dent in 1831 from St. Francis, Missouri, to Lewis in Virginia urges him to come before next May. The county history sets the date of his settlement near Salem as 1835. Campbell (1873) seems to be in error in saying the county was named for "Frederick" Dent. Frederick Dent was a St. Louisian and the father-in-law of Grant, but had nothing to do with this section. (HIST. DENT, p. 574; Campbell; T.P. Dent)

Source: O'Brien, Anna. "Place Names Of Five Central Southern Counties of Missouri." M.A. thesis., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1939.

Neighboring Counties:

Insert Counties Here

Cities and Towns:

- Salem (County Seat)

city

Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

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