County Past
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Polk County, Missouri

Historic newspapers, landmarks, and county history layers for genealogists and local historians.

—newspaper titles
—digitized titles
4historic places
—earliest paper
1835formed
31,519pop. 2020
47cemeteries
—CW battlefields

At a glance

Summary

The National Register of Historic Places includes 4 listed properties in the county, first listed in 2003. Most listings are in or near Bolivar, Humansville.

Summary generated automatically from the source data on this page.

Newspapers

Library of Congress

Newspaper directory data for Missouri is not yet loaded on this site. Browse Polk titles at the Library of Congress.

National Register of Historic Places

NPS NRHP

3 of 4 listings mapped; some locations are restricted by NPS to protect sensitive sites.

4 listed properties
PropertyCityTypeListed
Bolivar Public LibraryBolivarBuilding2003
Dimmitt, George, Memorial HospitalHumansvilleBuilding2012
First National BankBolivarBuilding2013
North Ward SchoolBolivarStructure2011

Source: National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Property links open NRHP nomination files at the National Archives.

County formation

Newberry AHCB

Polk was formed in 1835 (1835-01-05) from Greene, Pulaski, St.

POLK created from GREENE, PULASKI, ST. CLAIR, and Non-County Area 16.

Source: Newberry Library, Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

Population by decade

Census

Polk County population from 1840 to 2020 (Census historical series).

32k19k6,1861840188019201930196020002020
18401860188019001920194019501960198020002020
8,4499,99515,73423,25520,35117,40016,06213,75318,82226,99231,519

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau historical county population (Forstall 1790–1990) and public-domain / CC0 county population series through 2020.

Cemeteries & historical places

USGS GNIS

47 cemeteries and 5 historical populated places (ghost towns / former settlements) recorded in USGS GNIS for this county.

Cemeteries — 47 of 47 listed
NameLatLon
Akard Cemetery37.6217-93.57242
Ankrom Cemetery37.52124-93.23478
Breshears Cemetery37.71359-93.19666
Brighton Cemetery37.45619-93.34334
Bushy Creek Cemetery37.65521-93.56896
Case Cemetery37.5117-93.19685
Chamberlain Cemetery37.77907-93.31186
City Cemetery37.61858-93.41639
Dunaway Cemetery37.6428-93.36669
Dunnegan Cemetery37.70925-93.55916
Flemington Cemetery37.80493-93.51131
Glover Cemetery37.45865-93.18973
Goff Cemetery37.63864-93.32685
Gorden Cemetery37.58209-93.21001
Greenwood Cemetery37.60788-93.425
Henderson Cemetery37.50698-93.51936
Hensley Cemetery37.54317-93.43577
Hopewell Cemetery37.79021-93.23251
Hopkins Cemetery37.64142-93.60909
Hubbard Cemetery37.5417-93.56214
Humansville Cemetery37.7876-93.56973
King Cemetery37.46921-93.60422
Lemmon Cemetery37.43245-93.51898
McDaniel Cemetery37.52601-93.61026
Morgan Cemetery37.7158-93.41426
Morrisville Cemetery37.48472-93.42587
Mount Olive Cemetery37.64031-93.38019
New Life Cemetery37.48115-93.22963
Oak Grove Baptist Cemetery37.79647-93.36233
Payne Cemetery37.74021-93.31397
Pickel Cemetery37.66147-93.51978
Pleasant Hope Cemetery37.47091-93.2759
Pleasant Ridge Cemetery37.5162-93.57804
Ragsdale Cemetery37.64954-93.22781
Reed Cemetery37.6031-93.24595
Richardson Cemetery37.66356-93.39725
Richardson Cemetery37.81009-93.53164
Shady Grove Cemetery37.57403-93.59497
Shady Grove Cemetery37.7737-93.57505
Spencer Cemetery37.57753-93.48686
Tiller Cemetery37.44881-93.2617
Tinker Cemetery37.75311-93.62284
Trimble Cemetery37.59198-93.59853
Turkey Creek Cemetery37.43262-93.55354
Union Grove Cemetery37.66031-93.47241
Viles Cemetery37.54113-93.24809
Wollard Cemetery37.57576-93.52905
Historical populated places — 5 of 5
NameLatLon
Clifford37.73282-93.20964
Dewey37.66754-93.26547
Gresham37.42532-93.39936
Ingalls37.78893-93.20103
Orleans37.52226-93.51909

Source: USGS Geographic Names Information System (public domain). Cemeteries from the 2021 NationalFile archive; historical places from GNIS HistoricalFeatures topical extract.

Historical markers

HMdb link

Marker text and photos from the Historical Marker Database (HMdb) are not embedded here. HMdb allows non-commercial reuse with attribution, but commercial/compensated use needs written permission; this is a commercial site, so we only link out.

Search HMdb for Polk County, Missouri

Terms: hmdb.org/copyright.asp. Linking is encouraged by HMdb.