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Missouri Counties

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Missouri Counties

Missouri has 114 Counties and one independent city. St. Louis City is separate from St. Louis County and is referred to as a "city not within a county."

Ray County, Missouri

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

County Seat: Richmond
Year Organized: 1820
Square Miles: 570

Court House:

100 West Main Street
County Courthouse
Richmond, MO 64085-1755

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named for John Ray, member of the first state constitutional convention.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History of Ray County

This county was originally a part of Howard County. See Lafayette County. It was organized as Ray in 1820 and named in honor of John Ray, a landowner, and one of the delegates to the convention which met in St. Louis in June, 1820, for the purpose of framing a state constitution for Missouri. At the time of the naming of Ray it included all the present counties north of its present boundary, and also present Clay County and all counties lying north of Clay. In 1822 Clay County was organized. It included its present territory and all counties north of it to the Iowa line. In 1836 all territory north of the present north boundary of Ray was set apart as Caldwell County. The county is bounded today by Caldwell County on the north, Carroll on the east, a part of Lafayette and Jackson on the south, and Clay and a part of Clinton on the west. (Williams 1915, Vol. I, 607; HIST. RAY 1881, 215; Ewing, thesis, 56, 66)

Source: Atchison, Anne. "Place Names Of Five West Central Counties Of Missouri." M.A. thesis., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1937.

Neighboring Counties:

Insert Counties Here

Cities and Towns:

- Camden	city	Incorporated Area
- Elmira	village	Incorporated Area
- Excelsior Estates	village	Incorporated Area
- Fleming	city	Incorporated Area
- Hardin	city	Incorporated Area
- Henrietta	city	Incorporated Area
- Homestead	village	Incorporated Area
- Lawson	city	Incorporated Area
- Orrick	city	Incorporated Area
- Rayville	village	Incorporated Area
- Richmond (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this 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."