SUDHEIMER

By Kelly Warman-Stallings
The Ghost Towns of Central Missouri

In the extreme eastern part of the county, bordering the Maries County line, was the settlement of Sudheimer. This was an average, small settlement of the nineteenth century which housed the usual general store, post office, and blacksmith shop. This hamlet, which was in Richwoods Township, was organized in the late 1800's and was located approximately 4 miles, as the crow flies, northeast of Iberia. Sudheimer has also been listed as being located in Maries County. An example of this is the post office was listed under Maries County, not Miller. The post office was in existence two different times (1905-1914; 1923-1936) and both times was considered housed in Maries County.

The original Brown School which sat near Greasy Creek, and the second Brown School, located east of Highway 42 on Faith Tabernacle Road, served the community of Sudheimer. There have been three different Brown Schools over the years and I am not sure if the third school educated the young folks of Sudheimer, but evidently the first two schools did. The original school, built of logs, was erected in the late 1800's on land donated by the Hannah family. The students of Brown #1 (1890's) were from the families of Barnhart, Brandon, Burns, Byrd, Goff, Grosvenor, Hickey, Lawson, Lee, Montgomery, Pendleton, Palmer, Rowden, Renfrow, Shaner, Shelton, Sehpherd, Sherrell, Stout, Whitaker, Williams, and Wilson.

The following teachers taught at the Brown School in the 1890's: Lillian Duncan (1892), Charles Messersmith (1895), George Palmer (1896), Lee Wilson (1897).

The second Brown School, a one-room frame building, was the nearest and the most accessible to Sudheimer. Another school located in the general area of the settlement was Berry School. In 1930/31, Berry School was listed as District #79. The school clerk was Walter Berry who resided at Sudheimer and the teacher was Anna Cross of Hancock, Pulaski County.

In 1927, Fred Hannah operated a country store named Trade Right. It was located a short distance from Sudheimer and in the Berry School vicinity. The general store consisted of the usual stock: sugar, salt, flour, thread, shoes, material, coal oil, stove pipe, nails…Later, the store sold gasoline and oil for the automobiles that passed by. Trade Right served both Miller and Maries county area residents and the following patrons were regular customers: Baker, Berry, Blankenship, Bolin, Clayton, Crane, Crismon, Cross, Copeland, Cottrell, Dake, Donaldson, Duncan, Fritchey, Hannah, Hale, Humphrey, Healey, Helton, Hickey, Irvin, Jones, Kee, Keeth, Lee, Lawson, Morrow, McKee, Machon, Moss, Pankey, Prater, Pendleton, Patterson, Rowen, Roark, Rollin, Skaggs, Strickland, Sherrell, Sooter, Shelton, Slone, Thompson, Veasman, Vineyard, Watkins, Wilson, Wiles, Willis, Whitaker and Yoakum.

My great-great-great-grandfather, Greenville Boyd, was listed as living in the Sudheimer community at the time of his death in the early 1930s. By the 1940s, the small settlement had ceased to exist and became a rural route of Dixon. Today, nothing remains of the settlement once known as Sudheimer.

Regional Ancestral Names: Berry, Barnhart, Brandon, Boyd, Burns, Goff, Grosvenor, Hickey, Lawson, Lee, Montgomery, Pendleton, Palmer, Rowden, Renfrow, Shaner, Shelton, Shepherd, Sherrell, Stout, Whitaker, Sudheimer, Williams, Wilson, Hannan, Crismon, Curtman, and Rothwell.