382 HISTORY OP SOUTHEAST MISSOURI Holland In 1871 J. C. Winters and J. W. Holland settled on the site of the present town of Hol- land in Pemiscot county. Winters is still a resident of the town but Holland, for whom it was named, is dead. It was twenty years before the place was anything more than simply a little group of farms; not until the opening of the Frisco Railroad be- tween St. Louis and Memphis was there any considerable activity in building up of the town. This was in 1901 and the first incor- poration was made in May, 1903 ; Samuel E. Redmond was the first mayor. Besides Win- ters and Holland, Joe and J. L. Lester, J. E. Butler and James Mills were among the first who moved into the town. The first mer- chants were W. A. Sanford, Holland Supply Company, A. L. Watson and G. S. ^Mirick. There are now five general stores and the usual number of blacksmith shops, restau- rants and other small establishments. In ad- dition to these there are two cotton gins and a saw mill in the town. One of the local in- stitutions of which the town is proud is the telephone exchange owned by the Citizens Co-operative Telephone Company of Holland. The population is about 400, having increased very rapidly in the last two or three years. This is due to the development of the sur- rounding country, which is of unusual fer- tility. Steele Steele is an unincorporated village in the southern part of Pemiscot county. It was named for L. L. Steele. Some of the persons who lived there during its first years were William Wilford, Jesse VanlToy, G. E. :Moore and Henry Flowers. The first merchants were F. T. Jackson Store Company and George W. Freese. The business interests of the town are now represented by seven gen- eral stores, three cotton gins, a saw-mill and a grist mill. The Bank of Steele was chartered in 1904, and has a capital of $10,000. The town is in the midst of fine farming country and gives every evidence of continued pros- perity. It now has a population of 600 and is situated on the Frisco Railroad. Cottonwood Point on the river, in Pemiscot county, was for a long time an important ship- ping point for the adjacent country, iluch traffic came to the place from Pemiscot and even Dunklin counties on the constraction of a road across the Little River swamp. The town prospered on account of this business, a number of large stores and other business es- tablishments sprung up, churches were built and a school maintained. Tyler, to the south, experienced a similar growth in a smaller de- gree. Both of these towns lost their impor- tance in a large measure by the building up of Caruthersville to the north of them and the construction of the Frisco Railroad through the county west of them. Deering and Wardell are important saw- mill towns, and other villages in Pemiscot county are Game on the Frisco, Stancil, Stew- art and Covington and Kennedy. Claryville The town of Claryville in Perry county was settled in 1869 and incorporated as a town in 1871, the first mayor being V. P. Tucker. The first merchant in the town was E. J. Rhodes. There are now three general stores, but no factories of any kind and the town is depend- ent upon the farming community about it. It has a i^opulation of 140.
