Prior to the year 1881 there were no railroads in Dade County. In that early day Greenfield was the metropolis of the county and all the horsetracks in the road pointed in that direction. The old railroad survey to which Dade County had subscribed bonds in the sum of ,000.00 touched the townsite of Greenfield on the southwest but when the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Railroad was built in 1881 it missed the town three miles. It followed a natural depression out of the Turnback and Limestone hills to the prairie leaving the county seat stranded on high and dry ground. People in their enthusiasm and speculation expected to see Greenfield with her business interests and county offices move bodily to the railroad point. To facilitate this enterprise Levin W. Shafer, in company with John A. Ready, two Greenfield lawyers and real estate dealers having financial relations with the Dade County Bank, purchased a 41 acre tract of land and laid out the pretentious city of sough Greenfield, with its spacious Public Square upon which a Court House was to be erected when the county seat was removed to that point. John A. Myers immediately platted an Addition on the northwest, G. W. Yeager an Addition on the southwest, Jacob Cox sold lots by metes and bounds on the south and L. J. Griggs Addition on the north, but this plat was never recorded. Many business men from Greenfield became interested in South Greenfield enterprises. Horace Howard embarked in the livery business, J. L. Wetzel sold general merchandise and many other lines were represented so that in a few years the new city attained a population of about 600. At this juncture the unexpected happened. T. A. Miller, a man of action and great business sagacity conceived the idea of building a branch railroad from Greenfield to South Greenfield by popular subscription. Greenfield business men took kindly to the idea and in a short time the Greenfield & Northern railroad was a reality. Its original promoters expected to extend this line to Stockton and on the some Missouri River point, but the north corporate limits of Greenfield became and remained its northern terminus. The rolling stock of this road consisted of one little wheezy, jerky engine, one box car and one combination express-baggage-passenger coach, one hand-car with tools and equipment sufficient for the section foreman and one hand. Later on this road was extended southward thirty miles to Aurora and was sold to the Frisco system and is now one of its important branches. With the building of this railroad the county seat hopes of south Greenfield gradually faded and finally vanished in thin air. The boom proclivities of the town subsided and its population gradually diminished until now it has something like 300 people within its corporate limits. Having Lockwood on the West, Everton on the east, Greenfield on the north and Pennsboro on the south its trade territory is restricted and yet, notwithstanding all this South Greenfield has made a substantial little city, junction railroad point and is the center of a rock-road district with about 20 mile of permanently improved highways. It has privately owned electric light and water-works systems, a beautiful public park, is the home of the Cumberland Presbyterian Camp Grounds and is in every way a very desirable place in which to live. Taken from http://www.dadecountymissouri.20m.com/custom2.html which was copied from "History of Dade County and It's People." Goodspeed Publishing, November 1, 1917. Submitter owns the web page and an original copy of the copyright expired book. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Greenfield%2C_Missouri