The fire that wiped LaGrange off the map

I've written here several times about the pioneer Lucas County village of LaGrange, founded in 1851 astraddle what then was the State Road, now U.S. Highway 34, at the Lucas-Monroe county line. It was the second village established in the county --- after Chariton in 1849 --- and was home to the Western Stage Coach Co. stop between Albia and Chariton as well as a number of commercial enterprises and homes.

The Burlington & Missouri River Railroad was built through western Monroe and eastern Lucas counties during 1866-67, just after the Civil War, along a route a mile south and that doomed LaGrange. Any commercial viability it had was redirected to either Melrose or Russell, new towns along the rail line.

By 1932, only one public building remained at the original town site --- a church that had housed a Cumberland Presbyterian Congregation, organized in 1851. This apparently was not the congregation's original 1869 building, but a newer structure built originally in Lucas and moved across the county to LaGrange when coal mining declined in western Lucas County and mining families moved on.

That church burned on Jan. 1, 1933, thus in effect wiping LaGrange off the map --- other than the LaGrange Cemetery and a few scattered farm-related houses and outbuildings. Here's a report of the fire from The Russell Union-Tribune of Jan. 5, 1933:

+++

The greatest enemy of man, "fire," destroyed another landmark last Sunday when the LaGrange church was burned to the ground just after noon. Cause of the fire as far as we have been able to learn is unknown.

There had been Sunday School services there in the morning as usual, but the building was totally vacant at the  time the fire was discovered. The flames were first noticed on the north side, the fire apparently starting near the entry way on that side. Neighbors all around were notified and the Russell fire department called to protect the neighboring home of Chas. Price, which became endangered by flying sparks and shingles. There was little chance after the discovery of saving the church as there was a high wind out of the southwest.

There has been one or more churches in old LaGrange for over 70 years. About 20 years ago, the old church was replaced by the structure which burned. The old building being unsafe, it was torn down and a church building in Lucas moved to the location and remodeled.

This now leaves the vicinity of LaGrange, once a thriving little village, with nothing to distinguish it from any other rural district. Where once were business houses, saloons, buggy shops, blacksmith shops, schools and churches there remains only farm homes and fields to mark one of the outposts of civilization in the days before the Civil War. Old Fort LaGrange and state road is now Highway 34, a strip of concrete.