 Cameron is a growing, regional trade center in Northwest Missouri. Nearby Pony Express Lake and Wallace State Park are choice recreation spots. Bass, bluegill and catfish can be caught in the 156-acre Cameron Reservoir. Summer brass band concerts are performed from a quaint bandstand in the city park downtown, on land donated by Samuel McCorkle in 1855. When Samuel McCorkle learned that his newly (1854) platted town, Somerville, was on a grade too steep to serve as a stop for the planned Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad (which arrived in 1858), he moved the town=s three buildings one and a half miles west to today=s site straddling the DeKalb-Clinton County line. He formed a five-member company, platted a town in 1855, and sold lots in 1856. The name honors the Cameron family; most sources divide the honor between McCorkle=s wife, Malinda, and her father judge Elisha Cameron. The Coberly House (1890) is a fine example of Queen Anne architecture. It is located on Chestnut Street at Seminary, one block west of Highway 69. The house features all the architectural devices of its style, including Eastlake detailing, roof cresting, shingle siding, delicately turned porch supports, complicated cross-gabbling, and a variety of first- and second-story porches. Cameron's "Crown Jewel" is the park in center of townOne of the Acrown jewels@ of the city parks system, McCorkle Park has a rich legacy and has enjoyed varied uses - although commerce isn=t one of them! Samuel McCorkle, one of the original landowners of the site on which Cameron was founded, gave the tract of land to the town with just one caveat. It was Anever to used for financial gain.@ This means that sales or fund raising events have been taboo at the downtown part from that day until this. Not that it hasn=t been tried. In 1901, when famed orator William Jennings Bryan spoke at an event in the park, the city almost lost its right to the land because admission was charged to people wanting to listen to the one-time presidential candidate and statesman. The quaint Ano-commerce@ rule is observed even today. For example, the Cameron Historical Society sells ice cream and other refreshments during Municipal Band concerts at the park - respectfully staying on the sidewalk to sell its wares! Originally, the park had fencing around it and was girded on three sides by hitching racks for horses, in , in 1908, the Traveling Men=s Association improved it and built a fountain with statues in the center. When their president, Mayor Jake Stoner, died in 1911, a tree was dedicated in his memory. Well into the middle of the century, train tracks ran just west of the park to the nearby depot building (now home of Delmmar Communications, an electronics business). A whitewashed concrete ACameron@ sign which welcomed train visitors is still visible on the west side of the park. Next to it is the shamrock-shaped AIrish Rock,@ a monument to the Irish heritage of many Cameronites. This is the site for part of the annual St. Patrick=s Day celebration, a major event in community life. The fountain and old sidewalks were removed in 1954 and plantings were substituted where the fountain sat. A marker, donated by Sloan Monument Works, was placed in the southeast corner of the park, and still stands there today. The present-day park is host to the Firemen=s Memorial and Municipal Bandstand, a two-story structure which encloses an antique city fire engine and other memorabilia of the fire service. On the second story is the bandstand where the Municipal Band performs its series of summer concerts each Thursday night June to August. The bandstand is excellent for dispersing the notes of the instruments, but difficult for viewers to watch the band and conductor perform their are. As it has been in the past, the park will be seeing some change in the months ahead. A new bandstand is being proposed for the park, and will likely be constructed so that listeners can also be viewers of the popular city band. With its grove of mature shade trees, decorative plantings and old--time park benches, picnic tables and street lights, the landmark McCorkle Park is an oasis in the center of town that invites residents and visitors alike. (Crowds gather at the McCorkle Park band shelter, in which an old fire-truck is housed, for several functions in Cameron, including the ceremonial lighting of the city=s Christmas decorations.)
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