Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
From the record
“The Thomas Shelby House, also known as Kerr House, is a historic home located near Lexington, Lafayette County, Missouri. It was built circa 1855, and is a two-story, Greek Revival style brick I-house.”
Wikipedia article Thomas Shelby House, CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 32 National Register listings published here for Lafayette County · listed in 1997 · category: Building.
Also known as. Antebellum Resources of Johnson, Lafayette, Pettis, and Saline Counties MPS
Township. Lexington township
Architectural style. Greek Revival architecture
National Register reference number.97001429- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The first time that the name " Lexington " occurs in the early court records of Lillard county is under date of August 6, 1822. The record says: " It is ordered that David Ward, Absalom Coleman, Robert W. Rankin, and Joseph. Hobson, or any three of them, being first sworn, be appointed to view the nearest and best route for a road to run from Lexington by way of the upper ford of the Big Sniabar to Stokely's Ferry, on -the Missouri river." Then again, August 19th, it is ordered that John Nelson, Markham Fristoe, Ira Bidwell and Jacob Catron, shall lay out a road from Lexington to intersect the road leading from the salt works to Jack's Ferry. This ferry had been established by Wm. Jack, in 1819, its landing place being a little below the mouth of Graham's Branch, or near the foot of Commerce street, which was graded down the bluff and well paved, as the grand thoroughfare from the city on the bluff down to her steamboat landing. But from the very spot where Jack's Ferry, and afterward steamboats used to land, it is now, 18S1, a half mile or more over solid land to the water's edge in the Missouri river; and the Lexington and Kansas City Railroad (narrow gauge), runs here for half a mile over ground where the river used to flow from ten to twenty-five feet deep.
Tne first plat in the book of town plats of the county is that of Lexington - the original village, or old town, which was about a mile and a half from the river at Jack's ferry. (The Missouri Pacific railroad depot is now, 1881, in Old Lexington. The following certificate accompanies the plat: State of Missouri,
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 6 fires within 5 miles of Thomas Shelby House
between 2011 and 2018, burning about 17 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
3
Debris and open burning
2
Equipment and vehicle use
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
1 working within 5 miles of Thomas Shelby House: 1 past producer.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Lexington, the town this property stands in, in 34 storm reports between 1994 and 2025: 15 hail, 14 thunderstorm wind, 3 tornado, 2 flash flood.
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.
A law enforcement officer reported that the tornado touched down just southeast of Lexington and moved east for 1 mile. Trees and power lines were downed.
At 1338CST a brief EF0 tornado touched down 1 mile east of Lexington, and moved east about a third of a mile, before lifting at 1340CST. Law enforcement reported that one outbuilding was destroyed.
Approximately two foot branch snapped off and pushed up against the exterior wall of the Lafayette Regional health Center. No damage was reported to the hospital.
No historic map-sheet match is published
for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs
a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
Browse the county's mapped places while that work is
pending.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
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.
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