A Sedalia Convention & Visitor’s Bureau Blog
By L.C. Melton
While enjoying the Sedalia, Kentucky story (there just has to have been a Dalia) I stumbled across another on-line Missouri place-names book and lo and behold just as I suspected. Henry Gannett says definitively that Sedalia’s first name was Sadieville using Sarah Smith’s nickname and negating Hasting’s account in the founder’s biography.…
‘Sedalia; city in Pettis County, Missouri. A modification of the original name Sadieville, having been named for the daughter of Gen. G.R. Smith’
So with a new name to trace I went to my trusty Gazatteer/Place Names Book to find that the state of Kentucky has a Sadieville and like a speeding bullet (more like a lobbed shot put) I checked out this new comunitiy with a “Cabbage Patch Doll” place name.
Sadieville KY, population 263 in 2000 is a suburb of Lexington in Scott County. It was founded in 1880 but named not after our Sadie but theirs…one Sarah Martha “Sadie” Emison Pack. It seems the Cincinnati Southern Railroad reached the area in 1876 and when it came time to incorporate the town, the dear lady’s name was chosen out of respect for her benevolence to the community. The town became famous for shipping yearling mules and colts and other commodities all over the country. The drives to the stockyards and then the loading on railcars made for considerable excitement in the small community.2
Otherwise the most exciting thing going on there is Dump Day the first Saturday of each month. And that takes care of Sadieville KY but I’m still looking for Dalia.
1Gannett, Henry; The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States.
2 ”Sadieville History”; http://www.cityofsadieville.com/about.htm.
