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Dale Carnegie, author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and founder of the Dale Carnegie Institute, may not have been born in Belton, Missouri, but he spent a great deal of time there and considered it his hometown. His book was a huge success and has sold over five million copies in thirty-one languages. Just as successful as the book, the institute currently operates in seventy-five countries. Carnegie was indeed Belton’s first and favorite entrepreneur.

Born in Maryville, Missouri, in 1988 to a poor farming family, Carnegie moved to the outskirts of Belton when he was a child. His childhood was full of the chores and hard labor typical of farming families. In high school, he became aware of his talent for oration and joined the debate team. He went on to college at the State Teacher’s College in Warrensburg, riding horseback to classes so he could save money by living at home. It was during those long horseback rides that Carnegie practiced his speeches and developed his speaking style. He became so skilled in intercollegiate speech competitions that other students offered to pay him to train them.

After stints as a salesperson and actor and in the U.S. Army, Carnegie became the business manager for a traveling lecturer. When that tour was over, he took some time to mull over his options and concluded that his best gifts were his persuasive speaking style. He pitched the idea of teaching public speaking at a YMCA, and his classes became almost instantly successful.

Carnegie inherently knew that the most successful business people and salespeople were ones with the best people skills, so he angled his courses to teach these critical skills, initially focusing on how to interview, make presentations, and create good working relationships. He changed his name from his birthname, Carnegey, to Carnegie, piggybacking on widely revered Andrew Carnegie’s name, even though the two men weren’t related. The public was hungry for self-help, and after two years of teaching at the YMCA, Carnegie founded the Dale Carnegie Institute to expand his reach. He developed a radio program and a syndicated column that appeared in seventy-one newspapers and wrote two dozen books and booklets, many of which were used as textbooks in his courses.

Carnegie died of Hodgkin’s disease in 1955 and was buried near his parents in the Belton Cemetery. The Carnegie Street home where he grew up, just west of the railroad tracks, still stands today, a foundation for the boy who was discerning enough to understand his own strengths and help millions of other people learn theirs.