Charleston: County Seat of the Missouri Bootheel

Charleston, Missouri, was laid out in eighteen thirty-seven on land in what was then Scott County. When Mississippi County was organized in eighteen forty-five, Charleston became its county seat. The town's name is disputed: some say it was named for Charleston, South Carolina, which itself was named for King Charles the Second of England.

Others argue it takes its name from Prairie Carlos, the Spanish name for the surrounding plain, Carlos being the Spanish form of Charles. Either way, Charleston sits in Missouri's Bootheel, that angular southern extension that juts down between Tennessee and Arkansas, a region defined by the Mississippi River bottomland and a cotton-farming heritage that looks more like the Deep South than the Midwest.