Carterville is a city in Jasper County, Missouri, United States.

While one James Carter settled in Jasper County in 1841, the land on which Carterville was built was originally owned by his son, James Gilbert Leroy Carter, who created a farm in the 1860’s.

[5] The town considers itself founded in 1875, when a post office called Carterville opened that year.

[5] Early Carterville was little more than a lead-mining camp, one of many in the tri-state mining district in southwestern Missouri, southeastern Kansas and northwestern Oklahoma.

[5] It nevertheless thrived, and at one time had a population of over 12,000 residents, making it larger than nearby Webb City.

[5] When interurban transportation came to the mining district in 1889, it was in the form of a horsecar line (other sources say a mule road) between Webb City and Carterville.

[7][8] That operation was absorbed in 1892 by the Southwest Missouri Electric Railway Company, later the Southwest Missouri Railroad Company, and by 1894 an electrified streetcar line linked Carterville to Webb City and Joplin in one direction, and Prosperity in the other.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 2.60 square miles (6.73 km2), all land.