Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Sumner Sumner, MO

Sumner is a small city in Chariton County in north-central Missouri, named in honor of U.S. Senator Charles Sumner.

Sumner was laid out by Joel H. Wilkerson in June 1882; the first home in the new village went up that fall, soon followed by the Commercial Hotel, and a newspaper, the Sumner Star, was established in 1890.

The Sumner area was explored before Missouri statehood by two sons of Daniel Boone and Thomas Stanley, who established a trading post nearby on the Grand River.

Sumner proudly calls itself the Wild Goose Capital of the World, a title earned from the huge flocks of Canada geese that winter at the Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge just south of town.

Congress established the Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge in 1937 after Dust Bowl-era wetland losses; the Civilian Conservation Corps built its roads and wetlands, and wintering geese there grew from about 800 in 1941 to 100,000 or more by the 1980s and 1990s.

Sumner has celebrated its geese with an annual Goose Festival held every October since 1955, and the town is watched over by Maxie, a giant goose statue billed as the world's largest goose.

Sumner is the birthplace of J. William Fulbright (1905–1995), the influential longtime U.S. senator from Arkansas and creator of the Fulbright scholarship program.

The 2010 census counted 102 people in 52 households in Sumner.

The 2020 census counted 78 residents in Sumner, a decline of nearly a quarter from 2010.

The whole city of Sumner covers about 0.23 square miles near the Grand River in the northwest corner of Chariton County.