The Blount County News and Dispatch, 24 Feb 1887 Letter from Missouri. Mountain Grove, Wright County, Missouri, February 15, 1887. Mr. Editor-Enclosed find subscription for your newsy News of which a few copies recently reached us. To my wife it is like news from home, as her childhood days were past in Blount County, Ala., where all her relatives except her father's family were left behind in the "cruel war" days of 1862-and but little correspondence has been had from the old home country since then. Among her nearest relatives were the Blackwoods and Cornelius' families of Warrior Settlement, and of whom she would be pleased to correspond with a member of either family. Any correspondence addressed to Lettie Lathom, P.O. Box 147, Mountain Grove, Mo., will reach here safely. Our County is comparatively newly settled, but its growth and improvement have been rapid since our first railroad was built in 1880. Land ranges in price from five to twenty dollars an acre; improved and near railroad still higher.-Pork from 4 to 5 cents per lb. Wheat 75, corn 40, apples 60, and potatoes 50 cts. per bushel. Flour is from 2 _ to 3 dols., per 100 pounds. Common labor from 75 cents to a dollar per day. Cows from 14 to 20 dollars each, horses from $50 to $125, according to quality. Mountain Grove is our railroad town, and has a population of about 1,800, the public school has 400 scholars, with three good substantial church buildings one a brick and one a splendid frame all well patronized, and supported with two or three wholesale houses, and a numerous lot of other enterprises and improvements that denote the "git up and git" of our business like little "city in the clouds" support by our pleasant, productive prosperous and healthy County. Yours respectfully, John Lathom.