This is the fifty-second article in our series about Ozarks culture and heritage in the counties of Missouri that are part of the Ozarks region. All or parts of 55 counties in Missouri are considered part of the Ozarks. Dade County is located directly south of Cedar County and north of Lawrence County. Dade County was organized in 1841 and was named for Major Francis L. Dade of Virginia, who was killed in the Seminole War in 1835. The county seat is Greenfield.
The Greenfield square is lined with buildings built in the 1880s out of brick made in the Greenfield Brickyard. Among them, the Opera House, which opened in 1888, is known as the "Jewel of the Square" and is still used for the summer productions of the Dade County Community Theater.
Greenfield was founded in 1841 when the town's site was selected as the place for Dade County's first courthouse. Pioneer couple, Matthias and Mary Ann Allison, gave the county fifty-one acres "in consideration of the location of the county seat." A year later the courthouse was finished and Greenfield's first business had also opened on the town's new square.
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