Хьюм, Миссури: История и современность маленького города

Hume is a city in southwest Bates County, Missouri, and is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area within the United States. The population was 283 at the 2020 census.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.68 square miles (2 km2), of which 0.66 square miles (2 km2) is land and 0.02 square miles (0 km2) is water. The community lies on Missouri Route A in the southwest corner of the county. Rich Hill is approximately eleven miles to the east and the Missouri Kansas border is 1.5 miles to the west. The headwaters of Duncan Creek arise adjacent to the southwest and Walnut Creek flows past the north of the community.

As of the census of 2010, there were 336 people, 122 households, and 89 families residing in the city. The population density was There were 141 housing units at an average density of The racial makeup of the city was 95.8% White, 0.3% African American, 0.9% Asian, 0.6% from other races, and 2.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.5% of the population. There were 122 households, of which 41.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.8% were married couples living together, 9.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.1% had a male householder with no wife present, and 27.0% were non families. 23.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.75 and the average family size was 3.33. The median age in the city was 33 years. 31.2% of residents were under the age of 18; 8.5% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 22.7% were from 25 to 44; 27.4% were from 45 to 64; and 10.1% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 51.2% male and 48.8% female.

The Hume area prior to the founding of the town was an area bathed in the beauty of nature and heinous Border Wars. Native Americans are thought to have buried their dead in a mound structure approximately one mile north of Hume, although there is no evidence to support this claim. The first known Euro American settler in the Hume area was Peter Duncan in 1835. The Bleeding Kansas affair and the upcoming Civil War brought John Brown to this area with an attack on the Lawrence farm, five miles south of Hume, in which slaves were freed. Border warfare fighting began soon after, which cost many lives. The Civil War began in 1861, and within a 40 mile radius of Hume, two battles took place: the Battle of Mine Creek and the Battle of Dry Wood Creek. The war came to a head when Order No. 11 was signed by Gen. Thomas Ewing and led to a burning of settlements in the Hume area.

It took many years after Order 11 for the Hume area to recover. A plat was drawn up by Leroy Taylor in 1880 for the town of Howard. Howard was not meant to be, due to the Post Office which had a town of Howard Mills, MO registered, and fearful of confusion, Howard had to change its name. The name, even today, is still debated upon. Tradition is that Hume got its name from a whiskey bottle falling off a train; however on Taylor's original plat, he had a Hume Street drawn on it. The population was about 1,000 at the beginning. Noah Little had to redraw Taylor's Plat and designed the town of Hume. Hume has many catalpa trees, due to a nurseryman in trouble for public intoxication who had to plant the trees as part of his punishment. Two railroads lines used to run through, now only one of these exists to this day. As for celebrations, the Hume Stock Show began in 1905, eventually the Hume Stock Show morphs into the Hume Fair, which exists today. Hume was known for being the White City on the Border due to local journalist Lewis Moore who advocated painting fences white in Hume. Many people did paint their fences white after this campaign.

Hume grew immensely due to the coal mining industry and the population peaked at nearly two thousand or more during at the height of coal production. The most prominent coal company in the area was the Hume Sinclair Coal Company. The first public water system was developed in the 1950s. Coal mining did not last past the 1950s and with the closing of coal mines, businesses vanished and people left.