How can you pass up a sign like that!
I had to make a swing through the town of Peculiar,
MO – it isn’t actually on the Jefferson Highway, but how do you pass up seeing a town with a
name like Peculiar…..and besides, the first thing I wanted to see is what is
the mascot of a school in a town named Peculiar. Answer:
Raymore-Peculiar panthers
July 29, 1868, the county surveyor surveyed the town of Peculiar into lots, blocks and streets. Established in 1868 as the “Town of Peculiar,” it was reestablished in 1889 when the railway went to the south. Early settlers came by riverboat, rail and overland. Many were migrating for the second and third time from communities in Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Families also came from Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Several families came from the New England area and settled in an area they called Yankee Hill.
Prior to the Civil War, the settlers decided their growing community needed a name. They could not settle on a name that was acceptable by the Post Office, as there were towns with the same name elsewhere. They wrote a letter to the Postmaster General, agreeing to let him make the final decision. ‘We don’t care what name you give us,’ they said, ‘so long as it is sort of peculiar.’ He wrote back saying he had given their predicament ‘grave consideration.’ ‘My conclusion.’ he wrote, ‘is that in all the land it would be difficult to imagine a more distinctive, a more peculiar name than Peculiar.’ and Peculiar it has remained ever since.
Peculiar is a small community 25 miles south of Kansas City. Charles O. Finley, owner of the Kansas City
A's, while squabbling with the officials in Kansas City and the baseball league association, publicly threatened to move his baseball team to Peculiar so they could "play in a cow pasture."
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