Lawson, MO

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Lawson is a city in Clay and Ray counties in Missouri. The history of Lawson begins with the arrival of the first settlers from Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The migration began in 1822 and continued for more than a third of a century. Numbers came from the four states east of Missouri, and from New York. There were even a few from across the Atlantic. As in every frontier community, churches were the first organized bodies, and schools and towns came next. Lisbonville formerly stood near the center of the very earliest settlement made in the northwest part of today's Ray County. It operated south and east of today's Elmira. John Fields of Kentucky, Samuel MeGee of Tennessee, and John Taylor of Virginia took out that wooded territory. It lay north of the middle fork of Crooked River. Early businesses which still remain today in Lawson include The Lawson Bank, the oldest institution of the kind in Ray county, established in the spring of 1883. The local lumberyard is the next oldest business firm in Lawson, coming into the present family name in 1888, when J.M. Morrow bought out Grizzel and Maggery's business and opened under the name, J.M. Morrow Lumber Company. The first issue of the Lawson Gazette was published on April 8, 1881. This paper was operated by the Lawson Publishing Company, but the editor's name wasn't given. In 1899, W.L. Bales bought the paper and changed its name to The Lawson Journal. Sometime around 1896 or '97, a second paper, The Lawson Leader, was started in town. C.D. Weakley and a Mr. Thomas bought both papers and combined the two papers under the name, The Ray County Review. On March 16, 1916, Sam Halstead bought the Ray County Review and immediately changed its name to The Lawson Review, which is still published today.