LaPlata, City of Silver, just missed being called "Charlotsville" by the length of a straw......... March 17, 1928, is LaPlata's seventy-third birthday. Mrs.R.J.Thresher of 26 W. 53d Street, KansasCity, Missouri, has in her possession some interesting documents concerning the early history of the town. A letter from her father, Theodore Sanders, written from Newburg, Macon county, Feb. 28, 1855, is addressed to his sisters and brother "Miss Alice and Rowena and Mr. Bennett Sanders, Ghent, KY.,,.........
"Loo (Lewis Gex) and I have layed off a town in which I own one fourth. There are several buildings going up in the spring; in fact there is already two contracted for and I am going to do so in a few days-that is have a house built-and expect it to be large enough to hold Pa and all the rest of you when you come to Missouri to see me, or what I would much rather see---to live.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you the name of our town. It is LaPlata which when interpreted means 'the City of Silver.' Will not that be a glorious name for the orator and poet to enlarge upon in future days? The town is laid out on the line of the North Missouri R. R . (that is if it ever comes) and we expect it will some day be large enough to get into Mitchell's or Olney's Geography-avant-."
Another letter concerning the naming of the town was written to Mrs. Thresher's mother before her marriage. This letter, which she is unable to find now, told that her Uncle Lewis Gex wanted to name it Charlotsville for a favorite sister, and so they drew lots.
"Father getting the lucky straw," recollects Mrs. Thresher, "chose the name LaPlata-river of silver (the letter we have says 'City of Silver'), hoping it would prove a veritable river of silver to brighten their future way (this to his sweetheart)." . . . .
A copy of the poll books for an election in the town of LaPlata, on Monday May 7, 1860, shows the list of voters to be twenty-one in number: G.W. Parks, C. B. Lilley, C. Sears, Henry Wolf, L. Gex, E. D. Dickerson, J.B. Donaldson, R. L. Shortridge, R. B. Ray, Wm. Moor, A. P. Williamson, E.Haurber, J. Q. Puliam, J. Snell, John Ownbey, C. H. Day, Wm. Spencer, Charles Atterbury, A. L. Ferguson, J. M. Magruder and John Layman. The judges were Joseph Ownbey, Lucien Gex, and Oliver Howard, but the count does not show that they voted.