It took 85 years for the permanent seat of government title to be incontrovertible for Jefferson City.
Today marks the 190th anniversary of the Missouri state government moving to the created Capital City from the temporary housing in St. Charles.
The City of Jefferson was selected as the third choice among three sites identified by a selection committee, given the requirement of being on the Missouri River within 40 miles of the Osage River confluence.
Boonville was one of the largest cities in Missouri in 1821, but the 40-mile limit made it ineligible, the intention of a legislator from Montgomery County who favored Cote sans Dessein, said Capitol historian Bob Priddy.
The French settlement, now covered by the Missouri River across from Bonnot's Mill, was the committee's recommendation. But in the end, the Legislature rejected the site due to land title ownership controversies stemming from fraudulent transfer of titles following the New Madrid earthquakes.
The committee's Plan B, then, was Howard's Bluff, roughly where Marion is today. However, westward pioneers from Tennessee already had been granted the land through the Surveyer General, and the Legislature had stipulated it must be on land not yet made available to the public, Priddy said.
So, it was the barren river overlook - consisting of poor farmland and one cabin - that was approved as the permanent seat of government, but it was challenged for that title many times over.
The exact site has been called "Howard's Bluff" in several sources. While researching toward his next book, due out by 2018 regarding the Capitol's history, Priddy found an 1823 map labeled "Jefferson City" with Howard's Bluff farther north.
"City of Jefferson is the only name it's ever had," he said.
The first challenge to the title of permanent seat of government came in 1831 from Boonville and then Columbia the next year, but neither bill went anywhere in the legislative process, Priddy said.
Then in 1842, a New Madrid property owner, who had been living in the east since the earthquakes, returned to Missouri and sold his land, which had been damaged by the 1811 earthquake like many others. The new land title holders discovered, when trying to redeem the land title for better land on the Missouri River, Jean Baptiste Delisle's name already had been used on land claims.
A land speculator named Angus Langham, who was a major cause for Cote sans Dessein to be disqualified, was found to hold some land under that name in the Capital City.
So, a suit was filed in the Cole County circuit court in 1846 against Thomas Lawson Price, who was the city's first mayor, seeking judgment that the title holders of Delisle's New Madrid lands were the rightful owners of the illegally obtained lots which became Jefferson City.
Because the land had not been surveyed before the faulty claim was made, the circuit court ruled against the title holders. The state supreme court then upheld the circuit court's ruling. And finally, in 1852, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Delisle had no claim because he was unaware of the state's exchanging of land deeds following the disaster nor of the subsequent fraudulent use of his name.
That settled any legal dispute regarding the city as the permanent seat of government - 25 years after the fact, Priddy said.
Next, Jefferson City would face the politically-motivated challenge to its title.
The Legislature in the 1875 Constitution declared the permanent seat of government could not be moved from Jefferson City.
"But that didn't close the door because the people still could vote," Priddy said.
So in 1895, a measure proposing a move to Sedalia passed both the House and Senate by large majorities in a single day, he said. The booming railroad town was so convinced Missouri voters would agree, several businesses changed their names to add "Capital," he said.
But, it was voted down in 1896. That ended the political contest.
Once more, voters would be asked about the permanent seat of government's location following the second Capitol fire in 1911.
Even while the flames were settling, some St. Louis legislators were pushing for the move to what then was one of the nation's largest cities.
University City became the promoted site, but then-Gov. Herbert Hadley promised to veto that.
West Plains also made a strong bid for the distinction when a peach farmer offered abundant land and significant funds to bring the permanent seat of government there.
A double election was planned. But voters in August 1911 approved the $3.5 million funding to build a new Capitol in Jefferson City.
If they had not voted with more than two-thirds majority, a second measure would have been on the 1912 general election ballot to fund $5 million toward a new Capitol in an unnamed location, Priddy said.
"That was the last serious threat to Jefferson City as the 'permanent seat of government' - 85 years after they moved here," Priddy said.
This sordid tale fits the state's greater early history.
"I don't know any state that can match Missouri's history in greed, skulduggery and ambition," Priddy said.