Bootheel
Gayoso explains why Caruthersville became the county seat
Pemiscot County's courthouse story moved from Gayoso to Caruthersville, leaving a readable river-history thread in the county map.
Gayoso is a reminder that Pemiscot County’s center of gravity has moved before. The old town was laid out in 1851 as the county seat, and its name reaches back to Don Miguel Gayoso de Lemos, a Spanish official tied to early New Madrid history.
For decades, county business ran through Gayoso. The courthouse record is almost a short river lesson: three courthouses stood there, then the county voted in 1899 to move the seat to Caruthersville after repeated damage at Gayoso.
That story gives Caruthersville more shape than “county seat” on a map. The courthouse square is part of a move from an older river town to the present Mississippi River city. It is local history you can read in the place names.
References
Where this fits: this note belongs to Pemiscot County. See every local note for the county on its page.