24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Lock Springs, MO

Lock Springs is a village in southeast Daviess County, Missouri, near the Grand River bottoms.

The village takes its name from three springs on 320 acres granted to John D. Lock in 1839; travelers who stopped for water called the spot "Mr. Lock's Springs," and President John Tyler granted Lock a patent for the land in 1843.

In 1870, the tiny hamlet of "Old Greasy" — three houses and a small store — was physically moved several miles to the springs site, a post office opened in 1871, and Nathaniel Houston platted the 14-block town in 1872.

Lock Springs was a stop on the Wabash Railroad, and by 1900 it boasted two hotels, a drug store, a dry goods store with the town's only public telephone, a stove bolt factory, an ax handle, barrel and stave factory, and its own newspaper.

Lock Springs reached its peak population of 288 residents in the 1920 census.

The 2020 census counted only 40 people in Lock Springs, and the 2010 census counted 57 people living in 20 households.

The whole village covers just 0.12 square miles, and today it is a semi-ghost town whose grain elevator is its main working landmark.

Lock Springs was the hometown of U.S. Congressman Jerry Litton, who died in a plane crash on the night he won the 1976 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate.