Bollinger County, Missouri

Bollinger County is a county in the southeastern part of the state of Missouri. It had a population of 12,363 at the 2010 census. The county was organized in 1851 and named for George Frederick Bollinger, a prominent early settler. Marble Hill is the county seat and only city.

History[edit]

Though their history is not well documented, the Bollinger County area was at one time inhabited by various Indian tribes, including mound-builders of the Mississippian culture. According to one estimate, some three thousand artificial mounds existed within the county, being perhaps more numerous toward the south.^[1] Certainly by the 18th century, it was vaguely within the territory of the Osage tribe, which included it among their hunting-grounds.

Though French traders may have been active in the area earlier, the first and most prominent settler was George Frederick Bollinger, a North Carolinian of Swiss-German parentage. Bollinger first came to Southeast Missouri in 1796-97 and persuaded Louis Lorimier, the Spanish colonial commandant at Cape Girardeau, to grant him a tract of land along Whitewater Creek and induce other settlers to the area. Bollinger returned to North Carolina and returned in January 1800 with some 20 other families, mostly Germans like himself. (Though officially only Roman Catholics were allowed to settle in the Louisiana Territory, and Bollinger and his fellow settlers were all Protestants of the German Reformed Church, Lorimier bent the rules for them, perhaps on the theory that expanding the white population would strengthen the Spanish hold on the territory.) Bollinger flourished in the Whitewater Creek area, building a mill and becoming a colonel in the militia; later he would serve in the territorial and state legislatures. His sons would be prominent as well in the next wave of settlement, and the Bollinger family today is a very large one scattered across Southeast Missouri.^[2]

Another community was established in 1800 farther southwest along the Castor River, near what today is the village of Zalma, and others followed throughout the antebellum era. For some time after the organization of the Missouri Territory in 1812, the area was attached to Cape Girardeau County; eventually, Bollinger County, named for Colonel Bollinger, was organized by the state legislature on March 1, 1851. The new town of Marble Hill (originally named New California), located near the geographic center of the county, was selected as the county seat that same year.

By the Civil War, the county had a population of around 7,500. It saw some minor actions during the conflict, including a Confederate raid of Marble Hill in April 1862 and a small battle on nearby Crooked Creek that August, but otherwise suffered less than some parts of the state. The first railroad to pass through, a branch of the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad, was opened in 1869, followed by a branch of the St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad in the 1880s. The first county courthouse burned in 1866, followed by another which burned in 1884, and the current structure, completed in 1885.^[3] After peaking at near 15,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, the population steadily declined, due to the closure or relocation of some local manufacturing businesses, until the 1970s, when it began a gradual increase that has continued to the present day.

The Bollinger County Museum of Natural History, located in the former Will Mayfield College building, opened in 1998. Among its exhibits are fossils of the Missouri hadrosaur, excavated near Glen Allen in 1942 and the first known discovery of dinosaur bones in the state.^[4]

Geography[edit]

Bollinger County is located in southeastern Missouri, bordered on the north by Perry County, on the east by Cape Girardeau County, on the south by Stoddard County, on the southwest by Wayne County, and on the northwest by Madison County. Vaguely rectangular in shape (though somewhat more irregular to the south), it has a total area of 621.2 square miles, including 617.9 of land and 3.3 of water.^[5]

Most of the county is part of the foothills of the Ozark Plateau with low, sometimes rugged hills. Farther west, these merge into the St. Francois Mountains, which are somewhat more elevated. The highest peak in the county is in the extreme northwestern corner, with an elevation of 980 feet. Within these hills are several narrow, fertile valleys, especially along Castor River and Crooked and Whitewater Creeks. A small area in the far southeast of the county is part of the flat Mississippi Alluvial Plain; the lowest elevation (about 350 feet) is here, along the border with Stoddard County.^[6]

No federal highways run through the county. The chief roads are Missouri State Highways 34, which runs from west to east through its center; 51, which passes the length of the county from north to south and intersects with 34 in Marble Hill; and 72, which also goes west to east through the northern section.

Demographics[edit]

At the 2010 census, Bollinger County had a total population of 12,363, with 4,847 households and 3,509 families. The population density was 19.9 per square mile. There were 5,878 housing units, or about 9.5 per square mile. The racial makeup of the county was about 97.92% White, 0.26% African-American, 0.62% Native American, 0.21% Asian, 0.15% from some other race, and 0.84% from two or more races. Hispanics of any race were 0.79% of the population.

The median age in the county was 42.0 years. 23.59% of the population was under the age of 18, 7.74% was between the ages of 18 and 24, 22.57% was between the ages of 25 and 44, 29.44% was between the ages of 45 and 64, and 16.65% was 65 years old or older. The sex ratio was 50.0% male, 50.0% female.^[7]

According to the 2010 American Community Survey, the median income in the county was $33,938 for a household, and $43,162 for a family. Males had a median income of $32,328 versus $26,581 for females. The unemployment rate was 7.3%. The per capita income was $18,172. 19.7% of the population was below the poverty line, including 27.6% of those under the age of 18 and 20.9% of those 65 years old or older.^[8]

Communities[edit]

Bollinger County is home to four incorporated communities, including one city and three villages.

City[edit]

• Marble Hill

Villages[edit]

• Glen Allen
• Sedgewickville
• Zalma

Government[edit]

Local government in Bollinger County is provided by the elected officials. Traditionally, these have been dominated by the Republican Party, which at present holds all the elected positions.^[9]

Countywide official	Name	Party
Assessor	Ronda Elfrink	Republican
Circuit Clerk	Dana Mayfield	Republican
County Clerk	Brittany Hovis	Republican
Collector	Sonya Fulton	Republican
Commissioner (presiding)	Leo Arnzen	Republican
Commissioner (District 1)	Roger VanGennip	Republican
Commissioner (District 2)	Roy Garner	Republican
Coroner	Charles Hutchings	Republican
Prosecuting Attorney	Stephen Gray	Republican
Public Administrator	Larry Welker	Republican
Recorder	Dana Fulbright	Republican
Sheriff	Darin Shell	Republican
Treasurer	Scott Minson	Republican

At the state level, Bollinger County is part of the 145th District in the Missouri House of Representatives, which also includes Madison County and the southern part of Perry County. It is currently represented by Rick Francis (R-Perryville), who was re-elected to his second term in November 2018, defeating Democrat Ronald G. Pember.

Candidate	Party	Votes	Vote Percentage
Rick Francis	Republican	11,381	82.316%
Gayla A. Dace	Democratic	2,445	17.684%

Francis overperformed within Bollinger County, winning by a margin of 4,056 to 678.

In the Missouri State Senate, Bollinger County is part of the 27th District, which also includes Cape Girardeau, Madison, Perry, Scott, and Wayne Counties. It is currently represented by Wayne Wallingford (R-Cape Girardeau), who was re-elected in November 2016, defeating Democrat Donnie Owens.

Candidate	Party	Votes	Vote Percentage
Wayne Wallingford	Republican	56,750	74.440%
Donnie Owens	Democratic	19,486	25.560%

Wallingford somewhat overperformed in Bollinger County, winning 4,370 votes to 1,059 for Owens.

At the federal level, Bollinger County is part of Missouri's 8th Congressional District, which includes most of southeast and south-central Missouri. It is represented by Jason Smith (R-Salem), who won re-election in November 2018, defeating Democrat Kathy Ellis.

Candidate	Party	Votes	Vote Percentage
Jason Smith	Republican	194,042	73.39%
Kathy Ellis	Democratic	66,151	25.019%
Jonathan Shell	Libertarian	4,206	1.591%

Smith significantly overperformed his average margin in Bollinger County, winning 82.811% of the vote.^[10]

Political Culture

As the above numbers indicate, Bollinger County is solidly Republican at the state and federal level, and has in fact been known as a traditional stronghold for the Missouri GOP since the early 20th century. It has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1976 (and only twice in the sixty years before that), or for governor since 1996. In fact, it has only trended more strongly Republican in recent years, with its rural, mostly middle- and working-class population being alienated by the Democratic Party's social radicalism. In the 2016 general election, the county overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump, who won 85.04% of the vote, his second-highest margin of victory in the state.^[11]

Like much of southern Missouri, Bollinger County can be included within the Bible Belt, and tends to combine social conservatism with economic populism. In 2004, it voted overwhelmingly in favor of Constitutional Amendment 2, which recognized marriage as between a man and a woman only—the measure passed in Bollinger County with 88.78% support. In 2006, while the state overall narrowly passed an amendment to fund embryonic stem-cell research, the county decisively defeated the measure with 67.72% voting against. At the same time, it often supports economic measures that appear to favor the working and middle class--though this happens less frequently than elsewhere in Southeast Missouri, possibly because of its longer tradition of identifying with the Republican Party. In the November 2018 election, the county rejected a proposed increase in the state minimum wage, with 56.44% voting against (though it passed the state at large). These results mark Bollinger County as one of the state's most reliably conservative regions.

References[edit]