Plattsburg sits pretty, with much of its old architecture intact. Main street bustles and the town is well manicured, featuring a row of delightful old homes, including Victorian gingerbread houses along the boulevard. The town’s elegant demeanor is what you’d expect as the home of a former president of the United States. Well, sort of a president. David Rice Atchison was leader of the Senate back on March 4, 1849, when he stood in as president for a day, because it was Sunday, and Zachary Taylor would not conduct business, including taking the oath of office, until the next day.

Missourians are proud of David Rice Atchison because of this little twist of fate. They even named a county after him.

As an attorney, he took up the cause to help some Mormons regain land seized by state authorities. But later he led the state militia to drive the Mormons from Missouri.

So Atchison had a side that was a little less gingerbread than his hometown. He was a slave owner, and wanted Kansas to be slave territory, too. He worked to import slave owners into Kansas, and even helped form a pro-slavery Kansas town that bears his name today. He even participated in the 1856 sacking and burning of Lawrence, Kansas—the first time Missourians burned Lawrence.

–from Souls Along The Road