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Oregon County was formed in 1845 from Ripley County and was named for
the Oregon Territory.
Oregon County is described in the Encyclopedia of
the History of Missouri (1901) as: "The county in the southern
part of the state, bounded on the north by Shannon and Carter,
east by Carter and Ripley, south by the state of Arkansas, and
west by Howell County; area 491,000 acres."
The first known white settler was Charles Hatcher in 1809, a
Revolutionary War veteran. The population in 1845 was 700. In the next
5 years it grew to 1,432. In 1860 the population had more than doubled
to 3,009. In 1870 there were 278 more individuals. In 1880 it had
increased to 5,721.
The town was named Thayer
in 1886 by the circuit court to honor Nathaniel Thayer of Boston, an
important stockholder in the Frisco railroad. By 1890 the population
had almost doubled again from
1880 to 10,467.
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