Randolph County was named for John Randolph, who was a statesman in Roanoke, Virginia, and that's where they got the name.

Randolph County was formed out of Howard County on January 22nd, 1829.

If you look in, records for Randolph County, you're going to find out that most of the people that came over this direction came from Kentucky before the Civil War.

The farmers all around here, and a lot of them had slaves.

They built a plank road, which was old planks of wood laid down one by one.

They laid them across.

And this road went from Huntsville, eventually ended up at the Missouri River at Glasgow.

And this is how people took their crops in, which was hemp, and tobacco to market.

That was before the railroad.

And if you drive highway 24 from Huntsville west, if you look over your shoulder on the right hand side, you can still see where the plank road was in some places during the Civil War, Randolph County was primarily southern sympathizers, but they didn't want to leave the Union, which is very interesting.

moving through the railroad, coming in 1866.

We move into the late 1800s, and the Wabash shops were here with over 5000 people here doing everything in these shops.

company named the Faessler Brothers invented a steam engine, boiler, expanding tube tool invented right here in Moberly, Missouri, in the late 1800s.

That's a tool that goes in tubes, and it expands and makes those tubes in the boiler seal.

Another invention that came in through here was what's called the Missouri mule hay baler.

this was a stationary hay baler that was built here by this.

Some shops here in Moberly, they called the Missouri mule hay baler.

moving into the early 1900s, Brown Shoe Company moved here.

The Moberly City people sold their fairgrounds that this brown shoe factory will be built.

And it employed a lot of people.

Another situation started here in Missouri, and it was called the West Lake Folks, the first West Lake hardware store, which would be known today as the Ace Hardware around the nation getting into the wars, World War two, the major key factor we're famous for in Randolph County is General Omar and Bradley.

he was a hometown boy.

He came back often.

He's known as a soldier soldier.

He's known as a friend to the soldiers.

Our National Guard armory is named for Bradley.

We have a stretch of the highway named Omar Bradley Highway.

That's a big part of our history.

My name is Doctor John Bondy, and I'm with the Randolph County Historical Society in Moberly, Missouri.

We represent the history of Randolph County, and we our motto is that history belongs to all of us.