Jasper County, MO

Jasper County was established as a governmental entity January 29, 1841, with the split log house of George Hornback at the pioneer village of Jasper on a bluff above Spring River designated the first, temporary courthouse/county seat. The government was, organized February 25, 1841, at the Hornback house with the first meetings of the Jasper County Court and the Circuit Court for Jasper County. Governor Thomas Reynolds appointed Samuel M. Cooley, Jeremiah Cravens and Samuel B. Bright as the first County Court Judges and John P. Osborne as sheriff. The Court selected Elwood B. James as the first county clerk. The land then included in Jasper County was all of present Barton County plus all but a three-mile-deep strip along the southern boundary of the present Jasper County.

On March 28, 1842, the Court adopted the site of Carthage as the permanent county seat. The initial town survey included the provision for a public square with a courthouse at its center on the highest plateau in the land then included in the county's boundaries. Temporary frame buildings were used several years and the first permanent courthouse, a two-story brick structure, was completed there in 1851. It served until 1863, when it was destroyed by fire.

When county government was resumed in 1865, Cave Springs Academy served as temporary courthouse. County government thereafter utilized several business buildings and a former church building in Carthage until 1895. It was in 1894-95, that the present Jasper County courthouse was constructed in the center of the Carthage square.