Missouri - Day 10 - Ste. Genevieve, mastodons, rural Missouri

St. Louis West KOA, Eureka
Saturday, 10 April 2021

We had much better luck taking a walk in this crowded campground early this morning when nobody else was awake.  But by about 6:30, it was light enough that I worried other people might be up too, so I took the dogs over to the park office to walk on our way out.

Pileated Woodpecker

While we were there, I saw another Yellow-shafted Flicker (see photo from 2 days ago).  I also saw about 3 dozen vultures (I semi-counted them) take their first flight of the day.  It's amazing to see so many of these big birds soaring around.  And I saw a Pileated Woodpecker flying around.  It's been more than a year since I published a picture of them, so I'm putting this here as a refresher.  They're the biggest of all our woodpeckers (16½"), now that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is probably extinct (such a sad thing).

As I was driving out of the park, I nearly ran over a squirrel that was shilly-shallying (dithering?) in my lane.  He just couldn't make up his mind which side of the road he wanted to run to to get away from me.

On the road
I came to a road named Horse Fly Vly (which I take to mean valley).  And that is not a name to entice visitors.

I passed a sign telling me to turn if I wanted to go to Czar Tower.  I'd seen a similar sign when I was on another road so this time I looked it up.  That name came from the nearby town of Czar, but nobody knows how the town got it.  But what the tower is is a still-used fire spotting tower in the Mark Twain National Forest.  This particular tower was built by the CCC in 1934.  Those guys really built things to last, when you think about how very many CCC projects are still being used today.

I passed goats, cows, and a half dozen calves that were all galloping together for some reason.  I drove on hills and curves, past farms and big green fields and scattered farmhouses and trailers.

I passed a sign for the turn to YMCA of the Ozarks, which is a nice old camp on a lake that my Momma and I visited some years ago with a group for Elderhostel/Road Scholar.  That was in the fall and the leaves were really pretty.  The 5-day program was about Missouri, mostly, and included a field trip to a couple of wineries.  It was interesting, as all the Road Scholar programs are, but I remember Momma getting a little worn out before it was all over.  She was using a walker by then.

I came to Potosi, pop. 2,660, a county seat.

Washington County Courthouse
in Potosi

The courthouse was built in 1908 in the Renaissance Revival style with a hipped roof.  This is an internet photo because I hadn't known this was a county seat, and the traffic kept me from getting an angle for a photo.  Potosi impressed me as a thriving little town.

The towns of Leadwood, pop. 1,247, and Leadington, pop. 422, aren't many miles apart and have similar names but different histories with a similar foundation.  As you might have guessed, lead is the common thread: Leadwood was originally founded in 1910 as a company town by the St. Joseph Lead company, and to be fair to them, it first named the town Owl Creek.  Leadington was founded in 1895, 2 years after the Leadington Lead Co. sank a mine shaft nearby - not exactly a company town but the mine was undoubtedly the primary employer.

Missouri has a town named Gumbo.

I came to Park Hills, pop. 8,759, which has an unusual history: it resulted from a 1994 merger of 4 towns in the area that had originally been independent of each other.  As I drove through town I noticed a stately old building with "Phoenix" carved above the door.  I couldn't take a photo but found this one (left) online.

That's a black-and-white photo - the building is actually a fairly pale tan color.  I couldn't find online when it was built, but it was once the city hall for one of the 4 original towns and had fallen vacant by 1995.  At that time the Park Hills city council started talking about "bulldozing" it so they could "upgrade the downtown area." Maybe it's the lead deposits that underlie this area that influence such thinking.  Fortunately, the Edward Jones Investments company bought the building in 2005 and have their offices there now - I saw their sign out front.

Speaking of lead, as I was driving out of town I couldn't help but see an absolutely huge abandoned set of buildings that I took to be a mill.  Now I'm wondering if it were originally related to lead mining, but I couldn't figure it out from what I found online.

And as a last note about this town, they count as a distinguished former resident Sgt. Darrell Cole, Medal of Honor recipient and the namesake for the USS Cole.  It's another remarkable story of heroism - this one in WWII - and here's the link.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Darrell-S-Cole

The Mennonite Church in Farmington is a volunteer litter crew.  Also in Farmington (2010 population of 16,240) I saw the Worrynought Kennels, an unusual name.

I passed the turn to Pickle Springs State Natural Area, designated a National Natural Landmark.  The area was formed from the sandstone created by the sandy beaches of the ocean that covered this land 500 million years ago.  The sandstone was buried by limestone, which eroded over time, exposing the sandstone.  This has weathered into unusual geological forms like a double arch, slot canyons and hoodoos (that's an actual thing).  It sounds like an interesting place to visit when I have more time.

I drove MO 32 through hills and curves, past a vineyard, lots of trees, and cows in green valleys - very pastoral.

I saw a sign that said "Jesus I Trust In You."  And an even bigger sign for "Trump/Pence."  This was one of only 5 Trump signs I saw today.

Ste. Genevieve

I wanted to come to this town of 4,410 because I'd heard it's the oldest permanent settlement in Missouri and has quite a few French Creole building.  And I'd barely gotten into what they've designated as the Historic District when I saw this building.

Old Brick House, built 1785
the 1st brick building west of the Mississippi River

Jean-Baptiste Vallé House

The town was originally built a little closer to the river but moved gradually upland as the river flooded, especially in 1785.  And somewhere around 1785 is when the Old Brick House and other still-surviving buildings were built.  One, the Jean-Baptiste Vallé House, was built about then and is now under National Park Service protection.  It was the seat of government for a time during the period of Spanish control, before the Louisiana Purchase.

I found this historical marker at a small park near other quite old buildings.

side 1

side 2

The signs showing street names in the historic district are in both French and English.

I passed the Memorial Cemetery, opened 1787 and closed 1882, that includes graves for the early French, German, enslaved, free, and mixed heritage of African American and American Indian as well as white.  Unusual integration for any period in American history.

The streets were so narrow that I had trouble navigating them, let alone finding a place to stop for lunch and a walk.  I saw a tiny rest area just as I was leaving town, which must not be used much because I got a lot of stares, but we needed a break.

I was curious about that marker for the Plank Road connecting Ste. Genevieve with Iron Mountain and Pilot Knob.  The histories I found all agree that the biggest beneficiary of this road was the town of Farmington, because the road went right through town and contributed to the town's growth.  It's an interesting story and here's a link to one version of them.   https://sites.rootsweb.com/plankroad

Right across the road from this rest area is a large facility for Mississippi Lime Co., with the slogan "Discovering What's Possible With Calcium."  Being ignorant, I looked it up and learned that lime is a general term for various substances that contain calcium.  This company says it's been operating for more than 100 years and now supplies calcium products around the world.

Back on the road

Instead of taking the fast route on the interstate, I stuck to the scenic route on US 61, the Great River Road.  And it was scenic.  Hills, valleys, streams, ponds, rocky walls, a red barn and a white church with a steeple, lots of trees.  Several honey producers.

I passed a home with 2 expensive tall screened shelters right next to the house, and I wondered if they backed up to a window in the house and were to allow the owner's cats some outdoor time.

I saw a dead end street with a sign that said "Street Not Thru."  I don't remember ever seeing "dead end" expressed quite that way.  "Not a thru street" I've seen, but not this Yoda-like formulation.

We were getting closer to St. Louis and many of the towns were getting larger.  Well, not all of them: Bloomsdale, pop. 521; Crystal City, pop. 4,855; Festus, pop. 11,602; Herculaneum, pop. 3,468.

In Herculaneum, I saw a sign for Oh Happy Days, a company that promotes hatchet throwing games - "fun for family and friends" to allow people to "let off some built up frustration."  Seriously?  Fun?  Hatchet throwing with family?

Mastodon State Historic Site

This is where I was headed, but I found they'd left some information off their website.  In particular that they closed each day from noon to 1 for cleaning.  I appreciate the cleaning part but wish they'd given people a heads-up.  And I was by no means the only one caught by this: I stayed a little while to walk the dogs and saw at least a half dozen groups come, park, don masks, walk to the door, and stop when they saw the sign.  They really should have mentioned this policy so people - like me - could plan.  But I was happy that we saw some lilacs on our walk.  These were real lilacs, not the Texas lilacs I'm used to.  The Texas version are nice, but the scent reminds me of grape soda, it's so pop-sweet.  These smelled sweet in a more delicate way, were pink instead of the Texas dark blue, and were delightful.

Something else they'd left off their website was that they charge an entry fee - only $4, but why didn't they warn folks?  I was really tired after fighting a strong crosswind on the narrow rural roads all day and decided not to stick around.  

But I did get one of their brochures so I can say that this site is where, in 1979, archaeologists found the first real evidence that humans and mastodons coexisted: they found a "Clovis" type spear point among mastodon bones.  This is the mastodon on display at the visitor center.

from the front

from the side

The longer I waited in the parking lot, the more tired I felt.  After all, I've been driving for the last 6 days, staying a different place each night, and it's been wearing.  So instead of staying for the visitor center and then driving on to a tour of St. Louis, which had been my plan, I decided to go straight on to tonight's campground.

I was lucky that I could get an internet signal so was able to plan an alternate route, involving taking I-55 to MO Hwy. M, which ran into MO Hwy. MM, which ran into MO Hwy W, which got me to MO 109.  Of course, it wasn't as easy as that because I first got on I-55 going the wrong direction and had to drive a while before finding an exit where I could make a u-turn, and then coping with these country roads not always being labeled very well because I guess nobody drives on them except people who know where they're going.  But we made it to Eureka, pop. 10,189, and the KOA here.

Because it's a Saturday, the campground was pretty full and I had a little trouble being able to walk the dogs without running into other people with their dogs, but I figured most of them would move out tomorrow.