24/7 Trauma & Biohazard Cleanup Near North Hunter Hunter, MO

Hunter is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Carter County, Missouri — it has no municipal government of its own today.

The land under Hunter was first patented by James Lieby on January 21, 1858, and John Hunter, a stockholder in the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company, established a sawmill at the site in 1887.

The Missouri Lumber and Mining Company laid out the town on an 80-acre plat filed at the Van Buren courthouse on October 27, 1888, naming it after John Hunter.

Hunter grew up at the junction of the Current River Railroad and the Cape Girardeau & Southwestern Railroad, and its 1889 depot was the first building erected in the new town besides the sawmill.

A post office opened at Hunter in 1890, and the Bank of Hunter was organized in 1917 before being bought out and closed in 1923.

Powered by the Ozark timber boom, Hunter reached its peak population of about 700 residents in 1920 — rivaling Van Buren, which is still Carter County's largest town today.

Hunter was briefly an incorporated town, having incorporated on February 22, 1923, before later giving up its charter and returning to unincorporated status.

The Hunter CDP counted 168 residents in the 2010 census but only 95 in the 2020 census, spread across about 3.6 square miles of land.

Hunter sits on State Highway 21 about four miles north of Grandin and roughly three miles east of the Current River, and its students attend the East Carter County R-II School District.