Pacific, Missouri: Named for a Railroad

The area around Pacific was first settled around eighteen twenty, where the Meramec River cuts through the Ozark foothills. When the Pacific Railroad pushed its tracks westward in eighteen fifty-two, surveyors platted a town here and called it Franklin, after the surrounding county. Problem was, Missouri already had a Franklin.

So when the town incorporated in eighteen fifty-nine, it took the railroad's own name and became Pacific. The railroad opened to traffic here in eighteen fifty-three, and the depot that followed became the economic spine of the community. Route Sixty-Six was built through Pacific in nineteen thirty-three, layering the Mother Road right on top of the old rail corridor.

Today the town of roughly seven thousand sits at the eastern edge of the Ozarks, still straddling the rail line that gave it its name.