Samuel L. Clemens, Journalist; When Congress Last Rose to Impeach, Mark Twain Rose to the Occasion

Writing as Mark Twain, Samuel Langhorne Clemens would claim that Florida, Missouri, "contained a hundred people and I increased the population by one per cent. It is more than the best man in history ever did for any other town." In 1835, the hamlet consisted of just two dusty roads and as many shacks as were needed to house a few hundred people a day's horse-ride away from the nearest Mississippi River community. Laid out in 1831, Florida sat on high, fertile ground where the north and south forks of Salt River joined thirty land miles from the Mississippi and seemed a likely spot to mill and ship the products of the outlying farms. By 1835, the first horse-powered mill gave way to a few water-powered ones; small, flat-bottomed boats carried produce the eighty river miles down to the town of Louisiana, Missouri, where Salt River joined the Big Muddy.