While many Missourians might know Walt Disney’s boyhood home is Marceline, others from the Show Me State might not know the claim to fame for another small Missouri town, Chillicothe.

Chillicothe is the Home of Sliced Bread. It’s where the first loaves of pre-sliced bread were first sold, and the town honors this distinction with a festival each year.

One will find out various other facts about the state in “Small Town Missouri,” a new book from Caitlin Yager, whose book showcases Mexico as one of 50 cities in the book. Yager’s husband, Zach, is from Mexico, graduated from Mexico High School and attended Truman State University, where he met Caitlin. She and her husband now live in South St. Louis County. The book was released May 1 through Reedy Press.

“Mexico is a great little town,” Caitlin Yager said, adding that she has spent a lot of time in Mexico and that it gave her a lot of insight into small towns’ atmosphere and community. She said the town is small but is larger compared to other communities in the book and has a fascinating history. 

Yager, who majored in history and minored in theater at Truman, works for Missouri Humanities and said in a telephone interview with the Ledger that the book, her debut, was two years in the making. She grew up in Webster Groves and spent a lot of time in Kirkwood, as well.

Yager said her background helped feed into her wanting to do a book about small towns. Her full-time job is a program director for Missouri Humanities, a statewide nonprofit. 

“Because of my position as a program director with an organization that has a presence throughout Missouri, my position really had a lot of engagement with Missouri’s small communities as well as rural communities,” she said.  

She travels across Missouri and creates short films and podcasts about Missouri small towns. She knew Josh Stevens at Reedy Press through her work, and he contacted her about how his company wanted to start a book series about small towns in different states.

“He said, do you know anybody who could write about small towns in Missouri,” he said. “I said yeah, I could.” 

She called it a “shot in the dark” and said she had never written anything like a book but has experiences in other kinds of writing.

“They really took a chance on me,” she said. “I think it helps that I was well-connected to small-town Missouri, that I had worked with them on some pieces of books in the past and done some writing, so they put a lot of faith in me and trust in me to pull this off.” 

Yager is not from a small town, she understands, but she was given a chance to tell stories from an outsider’s perspective on towns, affording her an opportunity of storytelling from a different angle.

“I think people don’t often realize the attraction or the amenities or the really great thing they have in their community when they’ve been so ingrained in it for their whole lives,” she said.

She said the book was “a lot of work, a lot of fun,” and the people she worked with in the communities are excited about the book.

“There’s someone out there helping them tell the world that there’s more to Missouri than St. Louis, Kansas City and Lake of the Ozarks and the Mizzou Tigers,” she said. “Those are all wonderful, wonderful Missouri things, but I think there’s this need to tell these stories. So many communities have connections to people and events that have national, international significance on a huge scale, and those stories need to be told so people can understand the place that Missouri has in the context of United States history, in the context of westward expansion and modern times — what our state is today and what it’s grown into, what has developed, what has changed. And a lot of those stories can be told through watching the change in small towns, in small-town Missouri and rural Missouri.”  

People may use the book as a way to explore the small communities. The book capped the population for towns at 25,000, and the smallest town was Arrow Rock, which has 59 people. The largest town was Sedalia, with a population of 21,725. Each town in the book includes a Founding Story, Legends, Lore, Attractions, Events and Vitals/Fun Facts. 

She said small towns are known for how people can know other people’s business, but she said the retort to that opinion is that small places can engender a sense of community and it can be strong.

“It’s just a different kind of feeling, and it is palpable,” she said, adding that one can see this when they visit restaurants and stores and notice the camaraderie and sense it’s not just transactional, it’s relational. She said her book can trigger people’s interest in the history of small towns.

She said it was a “long and tedious process” in finding towns, although some towns were obvious selections, and that there needed to be representation from every corner of Missouri. Research was part of her work in putting the book together, and said the 50 small towns is not an exhaustive list. Not every town has to have a hook in attracting people, as she mentioned how Carrollton made her list because it has so many features that are appealing, such as a great brewery and museum and a beautiful downtown square. 

“Having a hook is great, and that’s always going to be a wonderful way to get people into your town,” she said. “But I think it’s also the time and love and energy that you put into making your place welcoming and attractive and warm. I think a place like Carrollton has really done that.”

Yager said Pacific also made an impression on her, as she said the town is located outside of St. Louis, it is insulated from urban sprawl, it is on Route 66 and has an attractive downtown Main Street district with “quintessential historic buildings.” The chamber of commerce is housed in a 19th century storefront, she added, and the town also features great restaurants and breweries.

Yager said she hopes her book affirms the pride of place for the people in these communities.

“I want them to feel seen, I want small town Missouri to know its importance, and I would love for people to pick up this book and open it and see their communities are in there and feel a sense of pride,” she said, adding that they hope there’s something about their town that matters and they are part of an amazing state and story and that there’s something in the book that will resonate with people.