This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/YKB.2ACE/240.1 Message Board Post: The following was copied from Monroe County Missouri's GenWeb site at www.rootsweb.com/~momonroe/ Epidemics: Smallpox: 1850, 1870, 1899 Cholera: 1830 Influenza: 1918 History of towns and cities: Strother It was named after French Strother. (Undated article from the Monroe Appeal; from the files of Neil Block, transcribed by Lisa Perry) Strother, ten miles southeast of Paris, was the first neighborhood to take rank as the home of higher education. At a very early day several pioneer citizens, including Captain John FORSYTHE, Jacob COX, Joseph E. SPROUL, William VAUGHN, Hiram POWELL, Willis BLEDSOE and William T. BRIDGEFORD, organized to establish a school of higher grades than the ordinary school district shcool of the county. John M. LYLE, a graduate of (Mary...) College, was employed as a teacher. As an outgrowth of this effort, Strother Institute was later established, with Professor French STROTHER as principal; French WOOD, assistant; Mrs. S. A. STROTHER, principal of music; Mrs. Betha BAKER as assistant. There are no commercial establishments in Strother today. It is known only as a "community". Judy