Stet, Missouri

Stet is an unincorporated community on the Ray/Carroll County line and part of the Kansas City metropolitan area.[1] It is located approximately fourteen miles northwest of Carrollton at the intersection of Missouri Supplemental Routes K and JJ.

A post office called Stet was established in 1890, and remained in operation until 1973.[2] That same year, the rural route was consolidated with Norborne but the building stayed open as a contract office until 2011. The origin of the name "Stet" is obscure.[3] The meaning of Stet in Latin is "let it stand."

The community patrons took special pride in their school, which thrived for many years in a rural surrounding. In the early 20th century, several of the one-room schoolhouses in eastern Ray and western Carroll counties were consolidated into one larger school district, appropriately named Stet. The K-12 school of the cardinals opened in 1917 and just recently closed in 2012.

Stet was named by Ed Mansur, a Stet storekeeper, in the late 1800s. Once a thriving community that boasted of two general stores, a blacksmith shop and a variety of other businesses, today Stet still remains with a tire and welding shop, a telephone exchange building (Green Hills), a Pioneer Seed salesman, Norris Quarries, and a volunteer fire department (opened in 1964) which just recently added a kitchen addition to their current structure. Each summer, the fire team members hold an ice cream social at the station as a fundraiser event.

The area also has several churches of worship scattered throughout the countryside. They include: Bethany Church of the Brethren; New Hope United Methodist; Mt. Pleasant Baptist; and Union Baptist Church.

References

1. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Stet, Missouri
2. "Post Offices". Jim Forte Postal History. Retrieved 12 December 2016.
3. Moyer, Armond; Moyer, Winifred (1958). The origins of unusual place-names. Keystone Pub. Associates. pp. 141–143.