Kennett: Cotton Capital of the Bootheel

Kennett is the largest city in the Missouri Bootheel and the seat of Dunklin County, a wedge of low delta land that swings south below the rest of the state into the cotton belt.

The town grew from a settlement of log cabins in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was first called Chilletecaux for a Delaware chief, then briefly Butler, before being renamed for Saint Louis mayor L. M. Kennett. The Civil War era was hard on the county, and its first courthouse burned. A railroad reached the area in the eighteen nineties, and a state drainage program opened the delta land for cotton and other crops.