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This is the first in an occasional series about the history of our neighborhood. I was encouraged to write and post these by Jim (and several other people), so here is a start.
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In about 1880, Dr. A.W. McAlester bought approximately 160 acres of land on the east side of Columbia. This land makes up a large part of what is now the Country Club Estates neighborhood.
Andrew Walker McAlester was born in Rocheport on January 1, 1841. He was the youngest of five children of Brightberry McAlester, who was a lumber merchant and builder, and his wife, Mary Ann. They moved their family to Columbia in about 1846, where Brightberry was principal in a large contracting firm that built the county courthouse, a county jail, and several buildings on the new University of Missouri campus, including the (then) President’s home. The free-standing columns at the courthouse are all that remains of the courthouse he helped build, and the President’s home is now the Chancellor’s Residence on the Red Campus.
Young Andrew – or A.W., as he became known – graduated from the university in literary studies in 1864 and went on to receive a medical degree from St. Louis Medical College in 1866. He also attended medical schools in Chicago, New York, London and Paris, and visited medical schools in Germany.
A.W. McAlester
When the brand new “medical department” at the University of Missouri was begun in 1872, Dr. McAlester was appointed chair of Obstetrics and Surgery. He worked with his friend, Frank Nifong (Maplewood House) to develop the fledgling department into a real medical school. In 1880 he was appointed Medical Dean of the expanded medical department, a position he held until he retired at the age of 68 in 1909. Under his guidance, the medical school became a premiere teaching institution in medicine. He has been called the “Father of the University of Missouri School of Medicine” because of his “intent, interest in founding, establishing and organizing the school and getting it into action.”* In a lecture about medical education, he said: “To become successful doctors of medicine implies not only good soil, but good culture also. All culture and no soil makes Jack a dull boy; all soil and no culture reaches the same undesirable end.”*
from The Columbia Missouri Herald Jan. 17, 1902
About the time he was appointed Medical Dean, he also bought his tract of land on the east side of town, where he proceeded to build his farm. This included his handsome frame house on the hill, built in about 1883, with several barns, a windmill and many fences. His lane came in through a stone-built gateway, part of which can still be seen at the intersection of Country Club Drive and Old 63. He raised thoroughbred horses on his farm and showed them in local shows. As well as being a teacher of medicine, he was a medical doctor and probably had an office in his new home. The northern boundary of his farm laid along a line which is now McAlester street (and it’s imaginary extention); the southern boundary along the fence line south of South Country Club Drive, which divides our neighborhood from the ones to the south.
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* both quotes are cited in A History of Medicine in Missouri by E. J. Goodwin, published in 1905
