French settlers were here by 1788, making Commerce, by one account, the third-oldest settlement in Missouri still on its original site, after St. Louis and St. Charles. A trading post opened in 1803 gave it its name. During the Civil War it was a Union enclave in a Southern-leaning county: Col. Richard Oglesby’s troops landed here in November 1861, Jeff Thompson’s Confederates raided it that December, and from 1864 to 1878 it was the county seat. Today it’s a quiet river village of a few dozen people, with River Ridge Winery in the hills nearby.
- Where
- Commerce, MO, on the Mississippi River
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