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Smithton, Missouri

18 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1887 and the latest in 1983. It stands in Smithton Township. It lies in ZIP code area 65350. The Survey maps it on the Otterville West quadrangle. 506 people lived here at the 2020 count. It stands 873 feet above sea level.

Smithton within Pettis County

Population over time

2 figures

Smithton fell from 570 to 506 between 2010 and 2020. These are the recorded population figures Wikidata holds for this place, reached through the Geographic Names Information System number this page is keyed on rather than by name, so they belong to this place and not to another of the same name. Most are census counts, but not all are: an early figure may be a founding or settlement estimate, and an estimate published within five years of a census is left out. The change column is computed, and is left blank where more than 20 years separate a figure from the one before it, because a gap that long is not a change between two counts.

YearPeople Change
2010570
2020506-64 (-11%)

Topographic sheets covering this place

10 surveys from 18 printed sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

23,844 words on this township

History of Pettis County, Missouri, published 1919 names this settlement in its chapter on Smithton Township. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

Roughtly speaking the county may be divided into areas of broadly rolling hills, gently rolling prairies, and broken hilly zones adjacent to some of the important streams. The broadly rolling hill land occupies the southern portion of the county, chiefly south of Flat Creek, and con¬ sists of high but well-rounded divides and hills with broad tops and easy slopes. The stream beds lie seventy-five to 150 feet below the crest of the divides, and their valleys, ordinarily quite narrow, are in places broadened by strips of bottoms. Gently rolling or level prairies occupy large tracts in the western, northern and central parts of the county and form one of the most conspicuous features of its topography. Notable among these prairies are the level fertile areas surrounding Green Ridge and Camp Branch, southwest of Sedalia; the Smithton, Sedalia, Dresden, and LaMonte prairies along the main line of the Missouri Pacific Rail¬ road, and the Hughesville-Hustonia prairies, in the northwest part of the county. Much of the area between Heath's and Muddy creeks is also this type. The broken hilly zones are confined chiefly to the northern and southeastern portions of the county and do not extend far back from the streams. Most notable of these are found in Heath's Creek and Bowling Green townships.

Passage source: History of Pettis County, Missouri, published 1919.

The Chouteau limestone, which directly underlies the Burlington, differs materially from it. It occurs in general in thick, massive beds with very few bedding and stratification planes. The rock is fine grained, com¬ pact, and siliceous, with a very uniform light drab to blue color, although upon weathering it becomes buff. Large chert nodules are disseminated irregularly through it and the stone breaks with a concoidal fracture. The Chouteau is well exposed around Sedalia and to the east and south of Smithton. It has been extensively quarried in these localities and may be seen forming bluffs shortly north of Sedalia along the Georgetown road. In places near Sedalia the lower part of the Burlington limestone still rests upon the Chouteau but for most part it has been removed by erosion. The exposures in the central part of the county indicate the Chouteau to be forty to ninety feet thick there, but the full thickness is known to exceed 100 feet. The principal difference between the Chou¬ teau and the Burlington limestones is found in the texture and the color, being easily distinguished one from the other by virtue of these charac¬ ters. The Chouteau limestone is also a fossiliferous limestone.

Passage source: History of Pettis County, Missouri, published 1919.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Smithton Township - it names this place 3 more 3 times.

Fires near this place

2 since 2014

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2 fires within 5 miles of Smithton in 2014, burning about 8 acres in total. None started naturally. None was recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause Fires
Debris and open burning2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
9 March 2014Debris and open burning3.0 acresMissouri Department of Conservationnot named
28 January 2014Debris and open burning5.0 acresMissouri Department of Conservationnot named

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Pettis County

Mines and quarries near this place

4 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 4 workings within 5 miles of Smithton: 3 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Zinc, Bituminous, Bituminous, Zinc. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Lane MineBituminous, ZincPast Producer
Midnight MineZinc, BituminousPast Producer
Otterville Quarry & PlantStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Unknown - LsStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer

Every working recorded in Pettis County

Storms near this place

19 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Smithton in 19 storm reports between 2000 and 2025: 9 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 1 lightning, 1 tornado. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
May 2000LightningSmithton$20,000A tree struck by lightning fell on a house on O Highway north of Smithton.
July 2004Thunderstorm WindSmithton$5,000Large trees and power lines down blocking several city streets.
May 2025Thunderstorm WindSmithton-Downed wires and power outages near Smithton.
July 2025Thunderstorm WindSmithton-Private weather sensor measured a 50 knot wind gust.
May 2024Thunderstorm WindSmithton-Several tree limbs down.
October 2021Thunderstorm WindSmithton-Tree and minor roof damage just north of Highway 50 between Sedalia and Smithton was consistent with RFD location and behavior, and was not associated with nearby tornadoes.
April 2016Thunderstorm WindSmithton-An estimated 60 mph wind gust was reported by the public via amateur radio in Smithton.
July 2015Flash FloodSmithton-A spotter reported up to 6 inches of water flowing the road.
May 2012HailSmithton-Quarter size hail was reported on Highway 135.
May 2001Tornado (F1)Smithton-Tornado on the ground for 6 minutes uprooting numerous trees, but damaging no homes or businesses.
April 2016HailSmithton-no account filed
March 2014HailSmithton-no account filed
April 2014HailSmithton-no account filed
May 2012HailSmithton-no account filed
June 2006HailSmithton-no account filed
June 2006HailSmithton-no account filed
June 2006HailSmithton-no account filed
July 2005HailSmithton-no account filed
July 2005Thunderstorm WindSmithton-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Pettis County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Map PlaceDistance Sheets
Beaman5.7 miles18
Sedalia7.4 miles22
Bahner7.9 miles18
Georgetown9.4 miles18
Newland9.9 miles18
Spring Fork10.4 miles18
Dresden13.7 miles23
Postal15.0 miles18

Elsewhere

Matched on this settlement's Geographic Names Information System number rather than its name, so it cannot be a different place of the same name in another state.

Wikipedia article on SmithtonAn encyclopaedic summary. Its text is share-alike, so it is linked here rather than copied.
Wikidata item Q958514The structured record the population and elevation above come from. Public domain (CC0).

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 729814. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.