Northern Missouri

Laclede is Pershing's boyhood home

Laclede is home to the Gen. John J. Pershing Boyhood Home State Historic Site, tying a small Linn County town to the World War I general's early life.

Laclede has a bigger place in national history than its size lets on. John J. Pershing grew up there before he became the general who commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. Missouri preserves his boyhood home as the Gen. John J. Pershing Boyhood Home State Historic Site.

That gives Linn County a concrete way to tell a national story through a local doorway. The point is not just that Pershing passed through. His early life is tied to Laclede, and the state historic site keeps that connection visible for residents, students, and visitors who want more than a roadside marker.

Hours, tours, and visitor details belong with Missouri State Parks, but the local anchor is steady: Laclede is part of the Pershing story. In Linn County history, the boyhood home is the name to know.

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Related local notes

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The Locust Creek Covered Bridge is the longest of Missouri's four survivors The Locust Creek Covered Bridge near Laclede is one of only a handful of surviving covered bridges in Missouri, a tangible piece of 19th-century rural transportation history. Pershing State Park preserves wet prairie and Locust Creek bottoms Pershing State Park near Laclede protects a remnant of the wet prairie and bottomland that once covered northern Missouri's river valleys, a distinctive outdoors anchor in a farm county. Fence law and active farming shape rural Linn County In a livestock-and-crop county, Missouri's fence law and right-to-farm context govern boundary-fence responsibility and what counts as a normal farming neighbor, which can surprise new rural landowners Linneus is the county seat, not the biggest town Newcomers often assume the largest town holds the courthouse, but Linn County's seat is small Linneus, which is where the assessor, collector, recorder, and county commission offices sit.

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