Bowling Green
Pike County, Missouri

Bowling Green lies 12 miles from the Mississippi River where the rolling plains of northern Missouri meet the rugged terrain of the Lincoln Hills. The first settler was John W. Basye, a native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, who first moved to nearby Louisiana. Bayse purchased land in the Bowling Green Area on December 23, 1818, only ten days after Pike County was formed, selecting the site because of a big spring, the only ready source of water in the area.

In 1822 the Missouri Legislature moved the Pike County seat to Bowling Green from its original location in Louisiana. The town was reportedly platted in 1823, although the plat itself is dated 1826. In the center of town stands the county’s sixth courthouse, a Bedford stone and Georgia granite Italian Renaissance building completed in 1919 courthouse that features a parapet and a second-story pedimented entry with Ionic columns and balustrade. The junction here of the Chicago & Alton and the St. Louis, Hannibal & Keokuk Railroads in the late 1870s and later Highways 61 and 54 have given Bowling Green a good industrial base to augment the strong agricultural base.

Bowling Green is the home of James Beauchamp “Champ” Clark (1850-1921) who rose through the political ranks of city attorney, county prosecutor, and state legislature to member of the United States House of Representatives. In 1911, he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives, a position he held until 1919. In 1912, Clark was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, coming into the convention with a majority of delegates pledged to him. After he failed to receive the necessary two-thirds of the vote on the first several ballots he eventually lost to Woodrow Wilson on the 46th ballot.

Clark lived in a Folk Victorian two-story front-gable-and-wing frame house called "Honey Shuck" (photo left) in downtown Bowling Green from 1880 until his death. The name comes from the yard’s honey locusts, whose shucks fall to the ground. Honey Shuck was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and is open to the public during the warmer months.