Missouri - Day 22 - St. Joseph

Weston Bend State Park, Weston

Thursday, 22 April 2021

In last night's campground I saw at least 3 Red-headed Woodpeckers.  Very nice. 

today's route

some detail

On the road

I saw another Red-headed Woodpecker along the road.  There must be a bunch of them here if I saw that many so casually.

I stopped at nearby Cameron, pop. 9,933, to pick up some groceries.  Google insisted that, instead of going to the grocery store's parking lot, I stop at the Econo Lodge next door and walk across the grassy area between the two.  It absolutely refused to recognize the existence of the grocery store's parking lot.  Weird.

From Cameron it was only 35 miles to the center of St. Joseph.  Along the way I saw a herd of sheep with some llamas (or alpacas or something similar) mixed in, cows, horses.  I saw cropfields full of little purple flowers.  I saw some off-white sheep with lots of little black lambs - very cute.

I heard an interview on the radio with 2 newly elected members of the Kansas City School Board, and the topic of charter schools came up.  Someone who called in to the program drew a parallel between privatization of schools and privatization of prisons, suggesting that neither was a public good.  I hadn't heard that comparison before.

Today is Earth Day.  I remember my sister Louise being involved in a celebration for that first one in 1970 in Bryan, or more likely College Station.

St. Joseph

St. Joseph seems larger than its 2010 population of 76,780 - but that may be due to its large number of historic buildings and historic events.  St. Joe was the last outpost for supplies for the wagon trains heading west.  It was the eastern terminus of the Pony Express.  And, as Wikipedia pointed out, it's the birthplace of Eminem and the death place of Jesse James.  Or, as the city of St. Joseph put it, it's "where the Pony Express started and Jesse James ended."  

I'll start, though, with the historic buildings.

Buchanan County Courthouse - the dome,
made of glass and tin, is visible
but the front is hidden

Buchanan County Courthouse
built 1873 in St. Joseph -
the front but the dome disappeared

St. Joseph City Hall, built 1926-27

close-up of the City Hall's
Italian Renaissance Revival style

not historic, but a peace officer
memorial in front of City Hall -
I was impressed with the detail

unveiled 1940 - not particularly historic,
but what it commemorates was, and it
stands next to the park in front of City Hall

The city is also packed with old, substantial church buildings.

Francis Street First United Methodist Church,
built 1906 though the congregation
itself began in 1857.

The Dome, built 1899 originally as a church,
now used mainly for weddings.

First Presbyterian Church,
its cornerstone was laid 1909

I passed a number of others that I couldn't get photos of: 1st Baptist, built 1895-1901; 1st Lutheran, built 1914, with dedication services in German, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian; 1st Church of Christ Scientist, built 1899-1906.  And that was just the churches.

The section of town immediately west and south of City Hall is called Museum Hill Historic District with homes and other buildings illustrating every style used between 1860 and 1942, from Italianate to American Craftsman.

And though there's plenty of flat land, the city seemed to me built primarily on hills.  Steep hills.  They must have fun when it snows.

Not far from all of that was the museum for the Pony Express, including a rebuilt stables, across from a popular park with its own history lessons.  

This mural across the street sums up the city's history.

Pony Express Stables

DAR monument

This is their sign, with details below.

what they did

where they went

There's that Freedom's Frontier again.

The park across the street had a historical marker about the city.

side 1

side 2

Then there was more Pony Express info:

plus Civil War info:

local military situation

and the local military

no uniformity of thought in these parts

This park was near railroad tracks and the railroad was very important to the city's history, so it's no surprise there'd be a train or 2 in the park.  What was surprising to me is that one of them celebrated something I hadn't heard of - The 1949 Merci Train.

That's a box car behind the sign, though the one
Missouri received is in Sedalia.

I've learned the Merci Train was a response to the 1947 Friendship Train, which was brilliantly organized by journalist Drew Pearson.  He saw signs that the Russian Communists might successfully woo the hungry post-war Europeans with gifts of food, so he conceived this train.  It started cross-country from California, ending in New York, having been joined by railroad cars from every state - all filled with gifts of food and supplies.  From New York they were shipped mainly to France and Italy, capping a remarkably successful venture.  Two years later, France responded in kind with thank you gifts - thus, the Merci Train.  It's a fascinating story, which you can read about at this link.   http://thefriendshiptrain1947.org  Here's a link with more information about the Merci Train,  https://en.wikipedia.org/Merci-Train, though if you can decipher what's behind the chain link fence, the sign here in the park gives more information than I found online.  

And what I want to know is, why can't today's journalists come up with something world-changing like this?

I met 2 women from Cleveland in this park, and we were talking about the virus (of course) and some stumbling blocks to getting the vaccine.  One of them told me about a website called vaccinefinder.org, which is where she said she found the shots for both her in Ohio and her boyfriend in Colorado.  Very helpful.

Back on the road

I crossed Contrary Creek, and I can't find any useful information about its name.  All Wikipedia says is that it "runs in a different direction relative to other nearby streams."  Which is right on the edge of useless to me.  It's a tributary of the Missouri River, like all the other streams and rivers in this area, so exactly how different a direction ("relative to other nearby streams") can it go?

I was southbound on US 59, which ran alongside the Missouri for some distance - a view I appreciated.  Farther south I saw signs that I was on the Lewis and Clark Trail, which makes sense since the whole point of their expedition was to travel the Missouri and any promising tributaries in search of a water route to the Pacific Ocean - and, after all, I was driving beside the Missouri.

Wikipedia says, by the way, that the Missouri is the longest river in North America.  It runs 2,341 miles from the Rocky Mountains in western Montana to the Mississippi River north of St. Louis.  They say that, though it is considered a Mississippi tributary, the Missouri is actually longer and carries about the same amount of water.  Its watershed includes parts of 10 US states and 2 Canadian provinces.  A pretty big deal.

Tonight's campground turned out to be a mixed bag.  It was a somewhat uncomfortable campground, full of steep hills, impossible to see whether a dog was coming toward us until it was there, and a slightly surly campground host.

On the other hand, it had 3 large off-leash dog parks and Dexter made a new friend - an enormous dog named Walter.  The people told me his breed but I'd never heard of it and don't remember it.  Very nice dog and the 2 of them raced each other around the play area while Gracie lay on the grass and relaxed.  The nice young couple with Walter were from Kansas City and said they'd just come up for the day.  We had a pleasant, socially distanced chat, which more than made up for the grumpy park host.

Missouri - Day 21 - Sliced bread, JC Penney, and woolen mills

Wallace State Park, Cameron

Wednesday, 21 April 2021

In last night's campground, I saw a Bluebird.  Nice to see one again.

today's route

On the road

I was continuing my drive along US 36 today.  Inches from the outside lane line I saw a squirrel squatting down, and it took me a minute to realize it was alive.  It didn't seem to be hurt, but it didn't move a muscle while I watched.  It wasn't really looking at anything, just sitting there.  I hope it managed to stay alive.

I started passing flat farmlands in countryside that began to look similar to Kansas which, after all, is the next state over.

Chillicothe

"Home of Sliced Bread" is Chillicothe's claim to fame, and it's not a bad one when you think about it.  I'd been assuming the town (pop. 9,515 in 2010) was named for the town in Ohio, though I find there's one in Illinois, Iowa and Texas as well.  But Chillicothe is a Shawnee word meaning "big town," and since 1774 the Shawnee Indians had been living in a village known as Chillicothe, about a mile from where this town was later founded.  The town for US citizens who'd migrated to the area was surveyed in 1837.  It's now a county seat.

Livingston County Courthouse
in Chillicothe

I mistakenly failed to note the address or directions to the museum here that has the bread slicing machine and, though the town had a sign about it, they didn't include an address or directions, so I never did find it.  I can tell you, though, that on July 7, 1928, the Chillicothe Baking Co. began selling pre-sliced bread at area grocers, and that this was the first time anywhere in the world that sliced bread was available commercially.  And anyone who's ever baked a loaf of bread and tried to slice it while it's still warm knows just how hard that is to do without mangling the whole loaf.  This machine was truly an innovation.  

Otto Rohwedder, a jeweler in St. Joseph, had actually created a prototype machine in 1912, but the machine and all the designs for it were destroyed in a fire, and it took Mr. Rohwedder until 1928 to come up with this version he sold to the baker.  And to follow up on this earth-changing development, Mr. Rohwedder's 2nd machine was sold to a St. Louis baker who figured out an improvement that would hold the sliced loaf together long enough to allow it to be wrapped by machine.  This development was promoted by the Holsum Bread folks (remember that brand?), and in 1930 Wonder Bread (another long-lasting brand) was among the first to sell sliced, wrapped bread nationwide.  So now we know.

And now the phrase "best thing since sliced bread" has an actual time dimension: since 1928.

And though I didn't find the museum, I did find a number of murals of all kinds, scattered all over town.

This mural is on a short wall of the Citizens
Bank & Trust, subject of the mural, and
still going strong apparently.

These windows don't exist - the door at left does,
and the sign does, but the windows showing haircuts
in each aren't real.

Back on the road

Today I drove 120 miles and saw 3 Trump flags.

I passed a red barn on a green hillside dotted with black cows.  Very pastoral.

I started seeing quite a few facilities labeled MFA, though nothing told me what that was and I had to look it up.  It's a Midwest-based farm supply and marketing cooperative, serving 45,000 farmers in Missouri and adjacent states.  So a big deal.  One facility in particular I noticed was a setup that looked like a mining operation, with a conveyor belt that ran up high and dumped material into a pyramid-shaped pile.  Only this pile - all of it - was completely covered in white plastic, and I couldn't figure out why.  Now that I know it's a farm-oriented operation, maybe it was a pile of seed or grain?  And it was covered to keep the birds from eating it all?  It still seems odd because this pile was at least 2 stories tall.

Hamilton

Twenty-five miles west of Chillicothe is the town of Hamilton, pop. 1,809.  They say they have 2 claims to fame: "The Boyhood Home of J.C. Penney" and "Quilt Town USA."  Hamilton has several murals of its own.

There's a J.C. Penney Museum in town, and I'd originally planned to visit.  But oddly enough, I had to hunt for it because it turns out the address I got online is the local library - I think the museum is inside.  By the time I finally figured it out, I was feeling grumpy and decided to wait until my next visit to the area.

To back up their claim about the quilts, though, I can attest that I found quilting and sewing shops all over town.  And it's not even a very big town, so I don't know how they can all stay in business.  This seems like a nice little town, though my impression is that the range of local interests is mostly limited to farming and crafts.

Kingston and the Latter-Day Saints

Despite being only one-sixth the size of Hamilton, Kingston, pop. 348, is the county seat.

Caldwell County Courthouse
in Kingston

Built between 1896 and 1898, this courthouse is more fanciful than the one in Chillicothe.  There's a historical marker on the courthouse grounds that I couldn't take a photo of, but I found it online at this website.   https://www.hmdb.org/kingston  Oddly, the transcription at this link has a typo - the first word on the actual marker is "In" not "The" as they say.  The marker includes some of the odd information I found a little farther along the highway.

At a side road marked for the town of Far West, there was another sign that said "A Historical Site of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."  When I looked it up I learned that Joseph Smith had originally wanted to establish his church in Independence (MO), but after a few years non-church settlers there ran them out of town.  A few years after that, the state created Caldwell County specifically for the Mormons in compensation for the losses they sustained when they were kicked out of Independence.  The Mormons established Far West as the county seat.  It's apparently not much more than a ghost town now, due to what was incorrectly called the Mormon War of 1838.  Some of this is on that historical marker and more is at this link.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Far-West

Back on the road

I was near tonight's campground so I checked in there and dumped my waste tanks.  Nearby I noticed a recycling drop-off area and, for the first time since I'd left Richardson, I was able to get rid of all my recycling stuff.  At a few state parks before this, I'd been able to recycle aluminum cans and plastic bottles, but I had a backlog of glass containers and mixed paper.  This place took it all.  What a treat.

From there I drove south to the Watkins Woolen Mill State Historic Site - only to find that it was not only closed but also had no information displays.  Online I'd learned that this is the last textile mill in the US that still has its original machinery intact.  It operated from 1860 to 1898; the state's historic designation protects the machinery, the business records, and the building itself.  And none of that did I get to see.  I was very disappointed.

But it turned out the state had a campground and a picnic area on the grounds too, so I took the dogs to the picnic area for us to walk around a bit.  Honestly, with last year's leaves still on the ground and the so-recent winter weather, it looked and felt like autumn instead of spring.  But we had a nice walk.

Still, I had another disappointment when I let the dogs out and then noticed I'd lost a hubcap from my right rear tires.  My poor little RV is really looking like it's gone through the mill (an appropriate metaphor here).

On the drive back to the campground I passed a sign saying, "Entering Freedom's Frontier."  I was afraid that was some kind of separatist movement or something, but it turns out to be a National Park Service area that encompasses parts of eastern Kansas and western Missouri, dating back before the Civil War and, in fact, to some extent the cause of it.  Remember all that Bleeding Kansas stuff?  That's part of it.  I found a remarkably coherent explanation on this NPS website, if you're interested.   https://www.nps.gov/freedom-s-frontier-national-heritage-area

Tonight's campground only reopened for the season on April 1st, and there were still very few people there - though that was likely as much to do with it being a Wednesday as anything else.  It had 4 sections, and I was one of only 3 campers in my section, which was nice.

At one point in the late afternoon I saw the park host go talk to some folks who I'd assumed were going to be tent camping or just staying in their car, because they hadn't brought a camper.  After the people disappeared, I asked the host what that had been about, and he said they'd been picking mushrooms and he'd had to ask them to leave.  I walked the dogs over there and didn't see any mushrooms so wonder where they found them.  When I was a little kid, there was some kind of mushroom/toadstool brouhaha that I never really understood - other than eating the wrong thing can kill you, which has made me unwilling to eat wild mushrooms ever since.

Missouri - Day 20 - Twain, Disney, Pershing

Pershing State Park, Laclede

Tuesday, 20 April 2021

Snow had been predicted for overnight, and when we got up this morning and didn't see even so much as a slick road, I thought the weather system had passed us by.  Instead, it was just late.

It started snowing about 6:30, melting away almost immediately but definitely a snow shower.  But as time went on, it kept snowing and, though it never caused any problem with the roads, it was definitely snow.  I passed snow on the fields, I had slush on the windshield.  The roads were wet and strong wind gusts hit us broadside.  Not the most comfortable of driving conditions but it could have been so much worse.

today's route

On the road

Heading northeast from the state park, I went through a series of small towns, including Center, pop. 508.  School buses were running in all of them, and I was again interested to see that everybody stopped for the stopped school buses.  I never rode a school bus when I was a kid, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't like this then.  I wonder what today's kids will think when they get old enough to drive and learn about the precautions that have been taken for them.  

Today I drove 153 miles and saw 5 Trump signs/flags, starting in Center.  I was curious about that name, because it's not at all in the center of the state, and learned that it's in the center of the county.  I also learned (from the town's version of its history) that in the 1870s or so, there were 2 schools in the area (the one north of town was taught by Mr. Christian; the one south of town was taught by Mr. Dunlop) and the only students were adults.

I got on US 61 and kept seeing signs saying "Avenue of the Saints" but never any explanation.  I've looked it up and learned that US 61 is part of a 563-mile-long route between St. Louis in MO and St. Paul in MN - thus, "the Saints."

I heard on the radio that 93,000 Missourians have a medical marijuana card.  The state's current population is around 6 million.  

Mark Twain/Hannibal

Hannibal, a town of about 18,000, had numerous signs encouraging visitors to sign up for a tour of Twain-related places, but I didn't even bother to see if it was open - what with the virus and the snow.  Still, the dogs and I walked around a little and found a few signs for special places.

J. M. Clemens
Justice of the Peace

sign in front of the building at left

Becky Thatcher's house -
almost next door to Mr. Clemens's law office, though I don't know
if they were always this way or if one or both were moved later.

Tom Sawyer's fence

Tom and Huck

a small slice of Hannibal

As you can see, it was snowing, so walking the dogs wasn't as much fun as it might have been if we weren't getting cold and wet.  But at least we had the town almost to ourselves.

Back on the road

From Hannibal, we started west on US 36, dubbed by the State of Missouri as "The Way of American Genius," due to the unusual number of world-changers that were connected to the towns near this road.  As a sample, beginning with Twain in Hannibal and besides Gen. Omar Bradley, there were Gen. John J. Pershing, Walt Disney, J. C. Penney, and Walter Cronkite.  In addition, the Pony Express began in St. Joseph - the western end of US 36 in Missouri - and the first machine to slice and wrap a loaf of bread was sold in 1928 to a baker in Chillicothe (MO), having been invented by a jeweler in St. Joseph (really - a Chillicothe museum has the original bread slicing machine on loan from the Smithsonian).  Hard to imagine a world without Mark Twain, Walter Cronkite, or sliced bread.

Meanwhile, I was driving through farming country and saw an electronic highway sign: "Planting Season - Watch for Farm Vehicles."

I heard on the radio that there'd been a 2.4 earthquake near Eureka MO early this morning.  Since I'd just spent a week in that area, I couldn't help but be interested.  News reports said that area residents felt the shaking but no damage had been reported.

As I drove I gradually began to notice my very own ice floe.

I started having trouble remembering to pay attention to my driving, because this very gradually growing piece of ice was seriously distracting.  Of course, what it was doing was slowly sliding down the overhanging piece of the RV, then being driven up and under by the wind.  Still it was hypnotizing.  

Something else I was noticing was the accumulation of snow on the fields.

I was lucky that it never stuck to the road for long, but you can see that it really was coming down.

I was driving under a very low ceiling, as you can see in these pictures, past very large cropfields and scattered farmhouses.  Luckily considering the weather, US 36 here in Missouri is a wide, 4-lane well-maintained divided highway, much like an interstate.  But I gradually became a little dissatisfied with it because, like an interstate, this road wasn't taking me into the little towns along the way, which is what I'd hoped for.  Most of them are off the highway and you have to plan to go visit them.

I was about 30 miles west of Hannibal when I saw a Confederate battle flag hanging on a flagpole under a US flag.  Well, as I'd learned yesterday, this area is part of Missouri's Little Dixie, but for crying out loud, it's been 157 years since that war was over, and the CSA lost.  Are we just looking at sore losers, multiple generations removed?

The snow was moving across Missouri from west to east, so I was driving into areas where it'd been coming down for quite a while.  The landscape was starting to look like winter instead of spring.  Snow was covering the fields, the trees, and the cars.  Weird.

I passed the town of Macon, which calls itself "The City Of Maples" because it has more than 275,000 of them.  It only had about 5,500 residents in 2010 so the trees way outnumber the folks.  And it's a county seat, a fact I'd overlooked when I was planning today's route so I missed the courthouse and the maples.  Well, next time. . .

I was still meeting hills - sometimes steep hills - but I still found the countryside much flatter overall than it had been farther east, and especially farther southeast.  I guess I'm leaving the Ozarks here.

I crossed the Chariton River, and a bit later the Old Chariton River.  I'm used to towns and roads being stuck with an "old" added as they're replaced, but not a river.  I wouldn't have thought a river could get replaced, but in this case it did.  The Chariton River is 218 miles long and comes down into Missouri from Iowa, eventually dumping into the Missouri River.  Apparently at points in the past, this river got straightened (sounds like braces on somebody's teeth), but the Old Channel and its historic bridges still exist and, in places, still provide fish habitat.  I guess I found one of the places because both these rivers had water in them.

Missouri has a town named Lingo - named for an early settler.

Walt Disney/Marceline

As I took the exit for this town, I saw one of those warning signs for Amish horse-and-buggy outfits.  I also learned that this is Tiger Country, according to the local water tower.

Marceline, pop. 2,221, looks just like you'd expect a town Walt Disney grew up in to look.  And in fact, it's known as the first Main Street, USA - which I understand is a reference to a place in Walt Disney World, which is someplace I've never been.  Disneyland either, for that matter.  But this was the inspiration.

Actually, Disney only lived here from age 5 until age 9 or 10, but he came back several times as an adult, telling people that here he'd had some of the happiest times of his life.  What I saw was a very attractive old-fashioned 2 or 3 block downtown, surrounded by houses from the early 20th century.  The only chain I saw was a Sonic, which had been closed - possibly a casualty of the virus?

Walt Disney Hometown Museum

We stopped at the town square, took a walk in the snow, and then ate lunch.  By then I was getting tired and knew I still had some driving to do so decided not to go in the museum.  Maybe another time.

Back on the road

The sun was starting to show itself as we continued west.  The snow seemed to be melting fast and the temperature was in the mid-30s.

Gen. John J. Pershing/Laclede

About 15 miles down the road we came to the town of Laclede, pop. 345, best known as the birthplace and boyhood home of Pershing and the state historic site for him.

Pershing home

Pershing statue

Prairie Mound school
built 1874

These buildings are part of the state historic site.  The office was in between the family home and the school (above), and I assumed it was closed because so many other state buildings have been.  That school, attended by Black children as far as I can tell, was where Pershing taught before he finished Normal School (teacher training school, way back then) and then was accepted to West Point.

In 1919, Congress created the rank of General of the Armies of the United States - the highest rank in the military - especially for Pershing and authorized the president to promote him to this rank.  In 1976, Congress did a re-think and decided that they didn't want even Pershing to outrank Gen. George Washington, so they did some finagling to bump George up, but these two are still the only ones to have held this rank.

He seems to have been a very interesting person.  Here's the short version of his life from the state historic site.   https://mostateparks.com/pershing  And here's a much more detailed version from Wikipedia.   https://en.wikipedia.org/John-J-Pershing

Tonight's campground was only about 3 miles along the road, which was just as well, because I was really getting tired.  It certainly wasn't the number of miles I drove - only 150 - or even the driving conditions, because the roads were fine all day.  I guess it was just the fear that they would get worse, that ice would form or that snow would stick, that caused me to feel tension all day.  

The campground was small - only about 35 campsites - and only 2 others were occupied besides us and the park host.  It was comfortable, I could get an internet signal, and I didn't have any trouble walking the dogs.  Hard to beat.