Pike County is a county on the eastern border of the U.S. state of Missouri, bounded by the Mississippi River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 17,587. Its county seat is Bowling Green. Its namesake was a city in middle Kentucky, a region from where many early migrants came. The county was organized December 14, 1818, and named for explorer Zebulon Pike. The folksong "Sweet Betsy from Pike" is generally thought to be associated with Pike County, Missouri.

Pike County is said to be the home of Momo (The Missouri Monster). The first reported sightings in the 1970s were traced to various locations throughout the county.

History

The first settler, other than Native Americans, was William Spencer who arrived in 1799. Spencer came for a salt spring now known as Spencer Lick, to start a salt-manufacturing business. The salt was made to be shipped to St. Louis, a new but growing town at the time. Spencer abandoned his business when unfriendly Native Americans became a threat to his safety. He relocated the enterprise to Ralls County.

The history of Pike County is complicated by the fact that at its establishment in 1818, it included today's county boundaries, plus all counties north of it and those counties bordering all of them to the west, a total area of over six or seven times larger than its current size and thus covering most of the northeastern border area of today's state of Missouri. Pike County was gradually reduced in size by the creation of Ralls County and subsequent new counties, including Marion, Lewis, Clark, Scotland, Knox, Shelby, and Monroe.

The county was first settled by migrants from the Upper South. Some, though not all, were sympathetic to the Confederate cause in later decades. After the end of the post-Civil-War Reconstruction era, some of the county's inhabitants enforced Jim Crow laws and racial segregation in the county to maintain white supremacy. This occurred despite the fact that key US/Unionist military operations to control "Confederate" upstarts were launched from Pike County and had bases there.

Five African Americans were tragically lynched in Pike County between 1883 and 1921. Among those were Curtis and Sam Young, who were both lynched for allegedly murdering the city marshall, Walter Meloan, on June 6, 1898, in Clarksville, a small town on the Mississippi River. Pike tied with Howard County, Missouri for the highest number of lynchings of African Americans in the state during this historical period.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (2.1%) is water.

Adjacent counties

  • Ralls County (northwest)
  • Pike County, Illinois (northeast)
  • Calhoun County, Illinois (east)
  • Lincoln County (south)
  • Montgomery County (southwest)
  • Audrain County (west)

Transit

  • Burlington Trailways
  • OATS Transit

Railroads

  • BNSF Railway
  • Canadian Pacific Kansas City

Major highways

  • 20px Great River Road

Former roadways

  • Red Ball Route
  • Mississippi River Scenic Route
  • 20px Route 9
  • 20px Route 22
  • 20px Route 26
  • 20px Route 29

National protected area

  • Clarence Cannon National Wildlife Refuge

Demographics