Editing Hamilton, Missouri (section)

==History==
Hamilton owes its existence largely to the [[Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad|Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad]].<ref name="Hamilton">{{cite book|title='History of Livingston and Caldwell Counties, Missouri|year=1886|publisher=Higginson Book Company|pages=345–355}}</ref>
Prior to 1854 the area around Hamilton was unsettled prairie land belonging to the U.S. Government. With the coming of the railroad, the Hamilton Town Company was formed to develop a tract of land along the rails.

At first, the name Prairie City was intended for the new community.<ref name="Hamilton"/> However, Albert Gallatin Davis, a key member of the Town Company, chose Hamilton instead, in honor of two early Americans, [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founding Father]] and first [[United States Secretary of the Treasury|Treasury Secretary]] [[Alexander Hamilton]], and Joseph Hamilton, an early American lawyer and military leader killed at the [[Battle of the Thames]] during the [[War of 1812]].<ref name="History">{{cite web|url=http://www.caldwellcountymissouri.com/history_hamilton.htm|title=Our History-Hamilton|publisher=Caldwell County Development Group|year=2010|access-date=24 November 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121026032350/http://caldwellcountymissouri.com/history_hamilton.htm|archive-date=26 October 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_RfAuAAAAYAAJ | title=How Missouri Counties, Towns and Streams Were Named | publisher=The State Historical Society of Missouri | author=Eaton, David Wolfe | year=1916 | pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_RfAuAAAAYAAJ/page/n34 266]}}</ref>

The first house in Hamilton, fittingly, was built by Davis in the summer of 1855, as well as the first business, a general store, in 1857. The store would serve as Hamilton's first post office and Davis as the first [[postmaster]] in 1858.<ref name="Hamilton"/> The Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad was finally completed on February 14, 1859, and the first train arrived that day. A railroad depot was constructed by the fall of 1859, with Albert Gallatin Davis appointed the first railroad and express agent.<ref name="Hamilton"/>

By the outbreak of the [[American Civil War]], Hamilton consisted of about 25 homes and businesses. The town saw little involvement in the war, despite northwest and north-central Missouri being a hotbed of [[guerrilla warfare]]. The majority of the towns residents held strong pro-Union sympathies, with the few pro-Confederates among the populace forced to take an oath of allegiance.<ref name="Hamilton"/> Being on the rail line made Hamilton a tempting target for Confederate "[[bushwhacker]]s", so beginning in the fall of 1861, a company of the [[50th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment|50th Illinois Infantry]] arrived to help the local [[Home Guard (Union)|Home Guard]] unit defend the town.

Once the Civil War ended, Hamilton experienced a period of rapid growth, and was incorporated in 1868.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.city-data.com/city/Hamilton-Missouri.html|title=City Data Hamilton, Missouri|publisher=City Data.com|year=2012|access-date=24 November 2012}}</ref> At that time several new sections of land had been annexed into the original town plat and the population grew to several hundred. After a brief slowdown caused by the [[Panic of 1873]], growth resumed. By the mid-1880s, Hamilton had two newspapers, the ''Hamiltonian'' and the ''News-Graphic'', as well as two banks, two hotels, flour mills, grain elevators, and other businesses supported by a population of around 1,800.<ref name="Hamilton"/> [[Coal mining]] became of some importance to the town's economy in the early 1880s. The Hamilton Coal Company was organized in the spring of 1882 and began mining operations the following year about two miles outside of the town. A railroad spur line was constructed to connect the coal field to the Hannibal & St. Joseph main line.<ref name="Hamilton"/>