The early 19th century marked a change in the American landscape, most notably that the population was booming and more and more settlers wanted to expand West. To fulfill this desire of ‘manifest destiny,’ President Andrew Jackson signed a bill…

    Smalltown America isn’t just a place where you can find lots of history, but also culture. Marble Hill, in fact, is home to a developing local art scene. At the Cat Ranch Art Guild, local artists have established an encouraging community in a…

    There is another interesting cemetery to be noted in this tour, but this one has a more pleasant history than the last. The Marble Hill Cemetery is the town’s first official public cemetery, and it is additionally one of the first public…

    Tucked away in the Ozarks, one might be surprised to hear that long ago, dinosaurs roamed the area that is now Marble Hill. Because the region is on a major fault line, there have been shifting layers of the earth that have exposed secrets…

    The Will Mayfield College was the center for education in Marble Hill from 1880 to 1934. The co-educational school's enrollment peaked in the 1920s when it had over 200 enrolled students.      William Mayfield, a local doctor, and H. J. Smith,…

    Even though Marble Hill is surrounded by creeks, the town had a long history of contaminated water supplies. There were few wells in the area, and what did exist usually caused sickness, including typhoid. Many citizens dug their own cisterns to…

    Marble Hill, being in the center of Bollinger County, was officially selected as the county seat in the 1850s. This role required the town to house the county’s courthouse. Now people from all over the county traveled to Marble Hill to settle…

    Just 15 minutes outside of downtown Marble Hill and on the grounds of Bollinger Mill lies the Burfordville Covered Bridge. This landmark is Missouri’s oldest still-standing covered bridge, looming over the Whitewater River. Construction first…

We begin our tour of Marble Hill with the location that arguably brought the town to life. The Bollinger Mill sits just on the outskirts of the city and is older than Marble Hill itself, having stood for over 200 years. George F. Bollinger began…

In southeast Missouri lies Bollinger County -- 618 square miles of Ozark Highlands once occupied by the Shawnee, Delaware, and Osage indigenous nations. The county was named after George F. Bollinger, the leader of a group of Swiss-German pioneers…