Brashear City Hall is located at 105 West Main Street, Brashear MO 63533.
Phone: 603‑323‑5575.
Beginnings [1]
Brashear was laid out in 1872 but its history reaches back prior to that date for several years. A mile and a half northeast of Brashear, there once stood a prosperous little village called Paulville or Paultown. This place was laid out by Walker Paul some time before the Civil War, probably about 1855. Settlers had been coming into this part of the county ever since 1842, the year when William G. Brashear settled there. According to tradition he was the first white man to settle in that vicinity. That Mr. Paul thought his town would become an important place is evident from his generous plans in laying it out. In the center was an open square which was so located as to be on the crown of a beautiful knoll; around the square the business houses were to be built, and from it the town would grow. Soon after the town was laid out a few store buildings were erected on the west and north sides of the square, and the town became a popular trading point for the people in the Salt River region. There was a grist mill in the village, but it was burned during the war, for the purpose, it is said by some, of keeping the Confederate recruits in that section from getting supplies from it.
After the war the prospects for this little village brightened and it came to have a population of about 200 people. But in 1872 the Q. M. & P. R. R. railroad (Quincy Missouri & Pacific) was built from Quincy to Kirksville, and in that year the town of Brashear was laid out. This proved to be the end of Paulville. From the time Brashear was laid out people in Paulville began to move it, so that in a year or two practically the entire town had been literally moved over. One church building and several residences were put on trucks and moved over to Brashear, and some others were torn down in Paulville and reconstructed in Brashear. Brashear was therefore at the outset little more than Paulville transferred.
Among the earliest residents of Brashear were R. M. Brashear, R. F. Prince, and J. N. McCreary, all of whom came from Paulville. Mr. McCreary, who had been postmaster at Paulville, was the first postmaster at Brashear. When it had become settled that Brashear would be laid out he got the government to transfer the office, and he went with it. He is also said to have been the first man to build a house in the new town. Other early settlers were C. G. Cornell, W. B. Keller, William Hill, John Wyatt, John Young, and Dr. W. L. Hopkins.