Lafayette County was first organized as Lillard County

Lafayette County’s name carries a small Missouri statehood-era story. The county’s official history says it was organized on November 16, 1820 as Lillard County, named after James Lillard of Tennessee, who served in Missouri’s first state constitutional convention and first state legislature.

The same county history says the name changed to Lafayette on February 16, 1825, after the Marquis de Lafayette’s visit to the United States. It also says Mount Vernon was the temporary county seat and that the permanent seat was placed in the “Old Town” of Lexington.

That helps explain why Lexington is more than a pretty river town in county history. It is the long-running courthouse anchor for a county whose identity reaches back to Missouri’s first years as a state.