Andrew County History

Andrew County, organized 1841, is one of 6 counties in the Indian Platte Purchase Territory annexed to Missouri, 1837. Named for Andrew Jackson David, St. Louis editor, the county was first settled in the middle 1830′s. Pioneers were from Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and other parts of Missouri.

Savannah, the county seat, was laid out in 1841. First briefly called Union, it was renamed for Savannah, Georgia. The Platte Co. Railroad (C. B. & Q.) reached there in 1860, and today’s Chicago-Great Western in the late 1880′s. In the post Civil War years, the town grew as a shipping point and trading center.

A divided county during the Civil War, Andrew sent troops to both sides. In Aug., 1861 some 1500 from Andrew and other counties joined the pro-Southern Missouri State Guard at Camp Highly in eastern Andrew County while others joined a large Union camp in adjacent Gentry County. In 1861, Union troops seized “Northwest Democrat,” a pro-Southern newspaper, in Savannah and troops from Camp Highly seized the “Plain Dealer,” Union newspaper. Raiding Guerrilla bands overran the county through 1863.

Andrew County’s glacial plains support fertile livestock, grain, and fruit farms. In the county are One Hundred and Two and Platte rivers and forming its west border are the Nodaway and Missouri. In 1804 the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped on an island at the mouth of Nodaway and members of fur trader Wilson P. Hunt’s 1811 Astorian expedition wintered near the river’s mouth.

Among the county towns are Amazonia, once on the Missouri River, now inland, laid out in 1857 near the site of Nodaway City, early river port; Fillmore 1845; Whitesville, 1848; Rochester, 1848; Bolckow, 1868; Rosendale, 1869; Rea, 1877; Helena, 1878; and Cosby, 1882.