Book Description

Unfortunately, a diligent search of the repositories where Jackson County, Missouri, Poor Farm records might still exist reveals no surviving materials. Missouri laws of the 19th and early 20th centuries did not mandate official poor farm records. Also, modern statutes governing county records provide for retention and disposition schedules that may have allowed the destruction of any records that existed. This compilation of the 1860 through 1940 United States census entries for the Jackson County Poor Farm near Little Blue, Missouri, was undertaken as an attempt to create an easily consulted list of inmates. Although 2560 names appear here, this list is necessarily incomplete-it includes only persons who lived at the Poor Farm on "census day" in 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940. (The 1890 census does not survive.)