Flory, Missouri

Flory, Missouri, is a ghost town in extreme northwest Dade County, Missouri, near Cedarville, south and west of the Cedar County town of Jerico Springs, northwest of the community of Sylvania, about a mile east of the Barton County line. Moser's Directory of Missouri Places[1] states that Flory was located about seven and a half miles from Jerico Springs. A 1904 plat map of Dade County places the community at the boundary of survey townships 33 north, range 29 west and 33 north, range 28 west, at the corners of sections 25, 26, 30 and 31.

Flory was established as a trading post around the turn of the 20th Century, and bears the name of a popular politician in the state of Missouri at the time, although local newspapers of the era including The Greenfield Vedette,[2] Dade County Advocate,[3] and Lockwood Luminary[4] mention individuals with the surname also living in the area at the time. The settlement had a post office, which Moser's stated was discontinued in 1905, by reason of rural free delivery. Today the area around what was Flory is now in the Jerico Springs ZIP code.

The Flory community was included in Dade County Common School District No. 81, which operated a one-room school known as Rockdale, according the Eighty-Third Annual Report of Public Schools of the State of Missouri[5] from 1932, at which time there were 21 students enrolled in grades first through eighth.

Though references to the community as a way point lingered in local media until after World War II, sources interviewed by Arthur Paul Moser when composing his directory in 1971 said that remnants of Flory were completely gone by that time.

Local media references to Flory as a community include: Dade County Advocate, Oct. 27, 1910; May 4, 1911; May 11, 1911; Nov. 9, 1911; July 4, 1912; Greenfield Vedette, July 22, 1915; Oct. 28, 1915; May 18, 1916; Sept. 7 1916 (proposal to extend railroad spur); Nov. 16, 1916; May 31, 1917; Nov. 22, 1917; Dec. 5, 1918 (advertisement); Dec. 19, 1918; March 20, 1919; March 27, 1919; Feb. 19, 1920; Jan. 28, 1932; Aug. 1 - Nov. 14, 1935 (public notices); Nov. 28, 1935; Feb. 27, 1936 (public notice); Aug. 12, 1937 (classified); Nov. 24, 1938; Nov. 14, 1940; May 1, 1941; Jan. 14, 1943; March 23, 1944; April 27, 1944; Sept. 14, 1944; Nov. 30, 1944; April 26, 1945; May 3, 1945; June 14, 1945; Aug. 9, 1945; Oct. 18, 1945; Lockwood Luminary, June 12, 1925 (advertisement); June 19, 1925 (advertisement); July 3, 1925 (advertisement); July 10, 1925 (advertisement); July 17, 1925 (advertisement); July 24, 1925 (advertisement); July 31, 1925 (advertisement); April 1, 1932; Aug. 19, 1932; Sept. 16, 1938; Jan. 27, 1944; April 20, 1944; July 20, 1944; Sept. 14, 1944; Nov. 23, 1944; Dec. 28, 1944; March 22, 1945; April 26, 1945; May 3, 1945; May 17, 1945; June 7, 1945; Aug. 9, 1945; Oct. 11, 1945; The Jasper County News, Jan. 23, 1930.