A Glimpse of the Past
A Glimpse of the Past We are indebted to Mrs. Veda Ladd Oliver for her writing of the history of Dexter. The town had been in existence a little over 50 years at the time she wrote her story. Her information source included people who were actually present at the sale...
Then and Now | Part 1
Long before Dexter was a community, the area now occupied by downtown was nothing but wilderness. Delaware and Shawnee Indians made their home near this wilderness for a short time from the late 1700s until 1829. Within a few years after the last Native Americans...
Then and Now | Part 2
The Citizens Bank building, sometimes referred to as the Metro building, remains the most iconic building of Dexter’s downtown business district. No record exists of the first building on the corner of Stoddard and Walnut streets, but by 1895, there was a brick...
Then and Now | Part 3
In 1866, one of Dexter’s most interesting and influential citizens was born near Bloomfield, Missouri – Carrie Lee Carter. Carrie Lee Carter’s family hailed from Tennessee before moving to Bloomfield just before the Civil War. Her father, Alison E. Carter was a...
Then and Now | Part 4
The Bank of Dexter In 1889, a group of Kentuckians traveled to Stoddard County with the purpose of starting a bank in Dexter. Their intentions seemed honest enough that locals invested in the group’s plan to build the county’s first bank. Local business leaders got...
Then and Now | Part 5
John N. Miller John N. Miller was born on December 7, 1851 in Stoddard County on land not far from where the future town of Dexter sprang up in 1873. Known as, “Bud,” the young Miller was one of the first to build a commercial building at the intersection of Walnut...
Then and Now | Part 6
J.J. Dowdy Drug Before he died in 1945, John J. Dowdy was one of the only people still in Dexter that could have claimed they were there when Dexter was born. Dowdy was a little boy on that hot August day in 1873 when thousands of people were present during the...
Then and Now | Part 7 | Dr. Hill
Dr. A.D. Hill Dr. Alonzo Dufrey Hill was born in Schuyler County, New York on August 24, 1836. He attended the University of Miami Medical College in Ohio and became a doctor in his native county. When Civil War broke out, he joined the 9th New York Heavy Artillery...