From a blaze on a tree to a modern metropolis.

It all began 150 years ago when, looking over the Missouri Territory with other Tennessee pioneers, John Polk Campbell found a spot he liked and blazed his initials on a tree near a very deep spring, called a natural well. Those initials, JPC, marked the first step in the development of the city of Springfield.

It was in March, 1830, that Campbell returned to settle with his family. He found the William Fulbright family with other relatives already in the area and lured still more by building cabins for them.

During the century and a half since Campbell came, the community that sprang up around that well has developed into the "Queen City of the Ozarks," a bustling metropolitan area of close to 200,000 people serving as the economic hub for a large portion of several states. Through all the trials of growth it has retained most of the attributes that helped it draw people from throughout the country.

What follows is only a glimpse of greatness, a brief introduction to the character and growth of the city through some of the "million hours of memories" that have preceded its 150th birthday in 1979.