24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Marshall, MO

Marshall is a city in and the county seat of Saline County, Missouri, in the west-central part of the state.

The city was founded on 65 acres of land donated by Jeremiah O'Dell, deeded on April 13, 1839, and was named for United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall when it was chosen as the county seat.

Marshall was formally incorporated on May 14, 1873.

After Marshall's first two courthouses were lost to fires, the current Saline County Courthouse was constructed in 1882; it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and still anchors the town square.

During the Civil War, Marshall was garrisoned by Union troops, endured two Confederate raids, and was the site of the Battle of Marshall.

Marshall is home to Missouri Valley University, a private university affiliated with the Presbyterian Church that was founded in 1889 and enrolls close to 1,800 students on a 150-acre campus.

The university's original building, Baity Hall, was built in 1889 in the Victorian Romanesque style and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Marshall's most famous resident may be Jim the Wonder Dog, a Llewellin setter (1925-1937) said to understand commands in multiple languages, pick out cars by license plate, and correctly predict World Series and Kentucky Derby winners; he even performed before the Missouri Legislature.

In 2017 the Missouri Legislature declared Jim Missouri's Official Wonder Dog, and the Jim the Wonder Dog Memorial Garden, opened in 1999 on the site of his owner Sam Van Arsdale's Ruff Hotel, features a bronze statue of Jim near the town square.

Jim the Wonder Dog is buried in Marshall's Ridge Park Cemetery, the only non-human buried there, and caretakers say his gravestone is the most visited in the cemetery and seldom without flowers or coins.