Monroe County Article written by Thomas V. Bodine, Paris

Since the war Monroe county's history has been uneventful and given mainly to its material development principally agriculture. In 1898 it sent a company of gold hunters to Alaska who were among the first over Chilcoot Pass. They were to have had a dredge boat, but the boat did not reach them and they proceeded without it, like hundreds of others subjected to many privations and much suffering that first winter, when supplies were scarce. Among these argonauts were: T. G. Bassett, Tom Murphy, C. R. Buerck, Marcus Rodes, C. L. Dry,  D. M. Fields, J. B. Davis, and others.

In 1879 Paris was visited by a disastrous fire, which consumed the block on the east side of Main street and in 1900 it was visited by an epidemic of smallpox, brought home from the Spanish war and contracted mainly by negroes. There were eighty cases in all and the town was practically segregated from the surrounding country for a period of six months.