I started out with the best of intentions --- to wrap up in three parts the modest saga of Perry B. "Buckskin" Tracy and Stephen Clark, then became preoccupied with freezing rain and snow. So here instead is a brief account of Lagrange, the most easterly of three Western Stage Co. stops in Lucas County between 1853 and 1868. This is taken from the 1881 history of Lucas County, compiled by Dan Baker, editor of The Chariton Leader until he resigned to take on the history project.
The map shows the approximate scale and location of what now is a ghost town astraddle U.S. Highway 34 at the Lucas-Monroe county line. If you know what you're looking for, it's kind of obvious a settlement of some sort once was located here, but the only signage is at the cemetery just north of the highway along the county line road.
In addition to the amenities mentioned in Baker's description of the village, a school, a Christian (Disciples of Christ) church and a Cumberland Presbyterian church also were located at LaGrange.
Here's Dan Baker's description of Lagrange:
LAGRANGE
Mr. Samuel Prather, of Cedar township, owned the south-east quarter of the south-east quarter of section twenty-five, adjoining the county line of Monroe. Foreseeing that the county would be populated, and that towns must exist, he concluded to lay out a town. He employed Nelson Wescott, on the 17th and 18th of October, 1852, who surveyed and platted his forty acres into twelve blocks, containing eighty-eight lots, and an additional large lot containing over three acres. This lot he called on the plat, "lone tree lot," because of a large oak tree, which for many years stood on it, and was the only tree of any size in the neighborhood. The blocks were designated by the letters of the alphabet. The town was christened Lagrange.
On the first day of October, 1856, James Robinson and Noble Olmstead employed W.K. Larimer, then deputy county surveyor, to survey and plat a part of the south-west quarter of the south-east quarter of section twenty-five, and part of the north-west quarter of the north-east quarter of section thirty-six, into twenty-one town lots, which they called Robinson & Olmstead's addition to Lagrange.
The town of LaGrange, an outgrowth of Cedar township, was on one of the main thoroughfares running east and west through the state, and on the line of the Western Stage Company, who had a station at that point; and held for many years the position of the second town in the county. In addition to having the station of the stage company, there were the post office, two hotels, four dry goods stores, one drug store, two blacksmith shops, one wagon and repair shop, one chair shop, a cabinet maker and furniture shop, a shoe shop, and three doctors. A large amount of business was transacted. But in 1866, the railroad, which makes and unmakes towns, came along and left the town a couple of miles in the country. Since then the town has gradually been on decline, while her rivals, Russell and Melrose, being on the railroad, have waxed strong. Some years ago a large part of the town plat of Lagrange was vacated, and changed back into farming land; and some of the present owners are talking of vacating parts of the balance; and unless the Wabash, or some other railroad happens along that way, it will eventually follow Ragtown to the shades of oblivion.
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