Paydown is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in northeastern Maries County,

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

, United States. The community is located along

Missouri Route N A supplemental route is a state secondary road in the U.S. state of Missouri, designated with letters. Supplemental routes were various roads within the state which the Missouri Department of Transportation was given in 1952 to maintain in add ...

approximately 2.5 miles northeast of Bend and five miles southwest of Belle. The

Gasconade River The Gasconade River is about longU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 31, 2011 and is located in central and south-central Missouri. The Gasconade River begins in the O ...

flows past one-half mile west of the community.

History

Paydown got its start ''circa'' 1830 when a large

gristmill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...

was built there. According to tradition, the proprietor of the mill required all customers to "pay down" promptly, hence the name. A post office called Pay Down was in operation from 1856 until 1932.

References

Unincorporated communities in Maries County, Missouri Unincorporated communities in Missouri {{MariesCountyMO-geo-stub