Prior to the official creation of DeKalb County, Missouri in 1848, the area was comprised of unsurveyed, unbroken wilderness, except for the old Council Bluffs trail – a military road extending from Liberty to Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Along this road, the mail for the garrison at Council Bluffs was carried every week by soldiers from that post, who usually made the journey to and from Liberty on foot.

Some time in the winter of 1824 or ‘25, three soldiers engaged in this service became lost in a terrible snow storm, which entirely obliterated the trail. They took refuge in the timber near the present site of Maysville. They had no means of kindling a fire, and spent the night in a snow drift.

The next morning two of them were unable to walk, and their companion set out on his journey of fifty miles through blinding snow to Liberty, where he arrived on the evening of the second day, with hands and feet frozen.

A company of pioneers were immediately sent out in search of his two companions and found them, after their sojourn of four days in a snow-drift, badly frozen and brought them to Liberty.

The stream near which these soldiers found shelter, has ever since been known as Lost Creek.