What was once a booming country village has quieted down after a long history.
Location
Guthrie is an unincorporated community in Callaway County, Missouri.
Settlement
Some accounts say Guthrie was laid out by the children of Samuel T. Guthrie, a man from Madison County, Kentucky. Samuel T. was born in 1793. His wife, Sally Phillips, was born in Casey County, Kentucky, in 1804. Samuel came to Callaway County in 1819, and he was married to Sally Phillips on Dec. 27, 1821. They settled on the present site of what would become known as Guthrie. Samuel T. was the first coroner of Callaway county in the year 1821. He died April 24, 1872, at the age of 79, less than two months before his sons, John Guthrie and Samuel N. Guthrie laid out the town. Guthrie was officially founded on June 10, 1872.
Other sources say Guthrie was originally laid out by aristocrat Ben Bigbee in 1872, who furnished the money to build the railroad and went broke because of it. These sources say the town’s name was changed to Guthrie in 1874 after John and Samuel N. Guthrie.
Growth
The first census shows Guthrie with a population of 100. The population has fluctuated very little until recent years. J. W. Bruton was the first postmaster, express agent, notary public, and lumber dealer. The railroad was built in 1872 at a cost of $640,000, running from Mexico, Missouri, to Cedar City, Missouri.
Sources say Guthrie was originally named Bigbee after aristocrat Ben Bigbee, who furnished the money to build the railroad and went broke because of it. Old survey maps show the east part of Guthrie as Bigbee. The old house on the John Reynold's farm, one mile south of Guthrie, had the air of a southern mansion and is rumored to have been built by Bigbee, who lived in the area.
The Guthrie’s and Butler’s
Martin Butler owned all the land south and west of Guthrie at one time. Matt Guthrie married a Butler and became heir to this land. The gravestones in Dry Fork Cemetery for the Butler’s and Guthries came from the old cemetery, which is kept up with the endowment fund left by Emerine Butler.
The Matt Guthrie home on the south-central part of the farm had a fireplace and little upper windows on each side with deep window casings, a winding corner staircase, a puncheon door with a latch string, a south window with a couch beneath, a shed kitchen with a door to the east, grapevines on a trellis over the well, a garden gate where hollyhocks grew, a four-rail fence on either side of the walk, a fire bush and huge oak trees on the lawn.
Mr. and Mrs. Guthrie were highly respected neighbors. Their children included Logan, Campbell, Cordie, Sally, and Pattie Guthrie.
Ewing Guthrie was the father of George and Jim Guthrie. Jim Guthrie was the father of Leslie and Orlean Guthrie Craighead. Frank Guthrie was the father of Baxter, Lou Gray, and Sallie Houston. They lived at the old Guthrie home, where Tonanzio's restaurant — what came to be an identifying feature of Guthrie — eventually stood.
Transportation
Trains played a big role in Guthrie life and welfare. The northbound and southbound trains met in Guthrie at 10 a.m. The southbound train was on the siding that ran from the east-west road to the schoolhouse. The northbound passenger train returned at 2 p.m., and the southbound train returned at 5:30 p.m. One could go to Fulton for a quick shopping trip on the afternoon trains. Everyone except the storekeepers met the morning trains to see who was going north or south and who got what from the freight train. Horses, mules, cattle, sheep, hogs and grain were shipped to St. Louis and Chicago. The branch line was the Chicago and Alton line.
Communication
The first rural telephone in the county and possibly the state was from Guthrie to Ashland. Charles Birkhead was in charge of building the line and installing the phones. The phone in each home had a call of long or short rings or a combination of both. There was no privacy on these lines, which was not at all appreciated by patrons.
Religion
The first church in Guthrie was founded on Oct. 4, 1823; it was the Cumberland Presbyterian. It was the third church organized in the county. It was a small log cabin daubed with clay, and it was known as Log Providence. The church was built on what was known as Picayune Prairie. The location is south of what residents later called Graveyard Hill.
The pastor and members are listed in a former Callaway history book. Later, Brother Buchanan and Brother Russell served as pastors, and a frame building was built in Guthrie, which stands today; however, it is no longer a church.
Today
The Guthrie post office closed in 1954.
In 1980, school children congregated at the junction of routes J and Y to catch the bus to school in New Bloomfield. That fall, 17 students K-12 assembled at the end of the gravel road adjacent to that intersection. By the next fall, the bus was stopping at more individual houses, so fewer students had to wait at the corner. By 2019, far fewer children were bused from Guthrie to attend school.
In more recent decades, Guthrie's claim to fame was Tonanzio's restaurant, which opened in 1969. A fire in 1994 forced the restaurant to close for a bit, but it was rebuilt and expanded, continuing business until 2016 when the owner's health declined. Strangers to the area still reference Tonanzio's as the one thing they know about Guthrie.
Routes J and Y are busy. Many commuters to and from Columbia travel the roads daily. In the early 1980s, Mrs. Flossie Hudson would sit on her front porch and watch the cars go by, wondering where all those people were going.
In good weather, dump trucks travel a beaten path to and from the quarry south of Millersburg. Never has it been so busy, though, as when Highway 63 after the flood of 1993. An estimated 1,000 cars a day drove through Guthrie at that time. Residents knew immediately when Highway 63 reopened because Guthrie became quieter once again.
Churches have always been an important part of this small town. Dry Fork Baptist and Oak Chapel Baptist are still going strong, and a new church came to town in 1999. Guthrie Baptist Church was built from 1998-99 and was dedicated in March of 1999. The name was changed to Guthrie Community Church a few years later, and it continues to grow today. The old Presbyterian church building was used by the owners for storage for many years; but in the early 2000s, Tom and Renata Kirk bought the building and opened a seed company. Much of their business was through the mail, but they sold locally and also raised fresh vegetables to sell along with flowers and plants in season. The business was open for several years but now is closed. Again, the old church building sits empty.
In conclusion, Guthrie is usually quiet even though it still has 21st-century problems seen everywhere. However, the old-timers and many newcomers don't want to live anywhere else.
