The town of Local in northwestern Jefferson County has come and gone and is, for the most part, forgotten, but the spirit of the community that featured Local School, a Baptist Church, a general store, a blacksmith shop and, later, a gas station, seems to live on.
Things were pretty tough for the town right from the beginning. Local, described as 12 miles northwest of Hillsboro and 12 miles south of Eureka in its business directory, was established in 1887 when the U.S. Postal Service approved S.G. Medley’s application for a post office. He owned the general store in Local and became the first postmaster. The post office sputtered and flew a few years until 1893 when it closed, then reopened in 1900 and closed again, permanently, in 1904, according to Robert E. Crean’s history book called Photographs, Documents & History of Byrnesville, Cedar Hill, Dittmer, Local and Scheve.
Perhaps the only thing in the area that still bear’s the old town’s name is the road that runs from Local to the county seat – Local-Hillsboro Road.
The church, now First Baptist Church of Cedar Hill, is still there although not in the same building. In fact, the church, first established in 1854, predates the town of Local by 33 years. And there is a school near where the first Local School was built next to the Baptist church, Northwest High School. There also is a gas station (Motormart) that sits on the corner of Local Hillsboro and Hwy. 30 just east of where a gas station was built around 1932. The former gas station was torn down when Hill-Behan Lumber went in, which also was torn down several years ago.
According to historian Della Lang in her book On the Road to History, it’s no surprise the town disappeared.
“Because of its location, the short-lived town of Local was doomed from the start. The town was too close to Cedar Hill and Byrnesville and too far from a river or railroad to become a commercial success,” she wrote.
Although the town wasn’t a commercial success and the name Local has almost faded from history, perhaps there is something more to a town than a name. After all there is still a school, a Baptist church, a gas station and a smattering of businesses in that same place along Local-Hillsboro Road.
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