The 1892 election was not just one in which a new president and Missouri governor would be elected, but one where the voters of Harrison County would decide if the county seat would be moved from Bethany to Ridgeway. There were good reasons for the move: Ridgeway was more centrally located in the county. If someone who lived in the northern parts of the county wanted to come to the courthouse, they couldn’t travel by train to Bethany and return home the same day. They would have to pay for overnight lodging as well to conduct their business, whereas if the courthouse in Ridgeway, they could sleep in their own beds that night.
Ridgeway’s location on a “high, dry and level piece of land” was also considered an asset: “A better location for a city can not be found and she already has the foundations laid for one of the finest towns in north Missouri.”
To sweeten the pot, the citizens of Ridgeway planned to donate the new courthouse and jail. As the existing courthouse had been valued at $18,000 which could then be sold, this would have been a net increase to the Harrison County assets. (Ridgeway Journal, November 3, 1892).
Despite all the efforts, Ridgeway lost out on the county seat in 1892. The editors of the Ridgeway Journal blamed the citizens of Ridgeway for not making enough of an effort to “let the voters know how matters really stood.” “Had Ridgeway and vicinity exerted the proper effort, victory was easily within their reach.” (Ridgeway Journal, November 10, 1892). It wasn’t the last effort Ridgeway made to obtain the county seat as they would try again in 1912 with considerably more effort. One must wonder what Ridgeway would have been like now if either of those elections had been won.
