The birthplace of Stars and Stripes

Hills and lowlands

From the wildflowers to the swamp

Stoddard County runs from the edge of the Ozark hills down into the lowlands of the Bootheel. Bloomfield, the county seat, was platted in 1835 on the site of an earlier Native American community and named for the wildflowers around it; Dexter, to the south, grew into the county’s largest town.

The swamps that once covered much of the lowland survive in the northwest corner, where the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge and the state’s Duck Creek Conservation Area protect some 28,000 acres of marsh, cypress, and bottomland forest between them.

Founding and early years

A town named for wildflowers

Stoddard County was organized on January 2, 1835, and named for Amos Stoddard, the first American commandant of Upper Louisiana. Bloomfield was platted that year as its seat, named for the wildflowers around it.

The Civil War

A newspaper is born

In November 1861, Union soldiers of the 11th, 18th, and 29th Illinois regiments marched into Bloomfield and camped there. While they were there, they used the town’s printing press to put out a paper of their own for the troops, and they called it Stars and Stripes. The name lived on, and Stars and Stripes is still published for the U.S. military today.

The war left other marks in Bloomfield: the Bloomfield Civil War Cemetery, less than three miles from the museum, is the resting place of about 150 soldiers who died in the war. The Stars and Stripes National Museum and Library now tells the paper’s story, with one of the three known copies of the original 1861 issue.

Since the war

A refuge, a museum, and barbecue country

The Mingo basin was set aside as a national wildlife refuge, and in 1950 the state bought Duck Creek next door as a waterfowl hunting area. Together they’re one of the best places in Missouri to see ducks, geese, and eagles in fall and winter.

In Bloomfield, the Stars and Stripes museum has grown into a national museum and library, adding space for military vehicles and hosting Liberty Days each fall. The Stoddard County Courthouse was listed on the National Register in 1984.