Boone's Lick, and Lexington Missouri

Yes, we have returned from Arkansas, been home a couple of weeks and ready to hit the road again. This time our trip is within the state borders. I have lived in Missouri forty plus years and never attempted to discover what is at Boone's Lick.  I have often gone west on Highway 70, but never took tine to venture north off it after passing Boonville. To orientate you, Boonville comes shortly after passing Columbia as you are traveling west on Interstate 70. John and I do know that Daniel Boone and family settled in St.Charles in the early 1800s. Daughters of the American Revolution have a marker (placed in 1913) at this historic site of Boone's Lick which claims that he, Daniel Boone, discovered the saline creek.  However, it was his sons Nathan and Daniel who found the site and set up an extraction operation for the production of salt.

John and I hiked a short distance into some woods to find the salt lick, which amounts to a small stream of water. And why is it called a salt lick?  At one time deer, elk and bison came to this area to lick the ground. Yum! Salty dirt. Consequently it was easy for the early pioneers and native Americans to kill big game at such sites. Saline creeks were important to the early pioneers- salt was needed for preserving food, seasoning and curing and tanning of hides. This area is quiet now with very few people around. Back in the early 1800s it was a major salt production site. The process back then required placement of water wheels and reservoirs, as well as aqueducts.

Pictured above is a spring box, or water reservoir, only one left. An interpretive sign nearby noted the wooden box had been preserved or pickled by the salt water. Also in the area is an upturned kettle which was used to boil the water down to extract the salt. The Boone brothers started with 12 kettles, later 40 more were needed. Furnaces were built of limestone to boil down the water. I could well imagine the big production it was back in the day to extract salt!  Many men and animals were used before the product could be packed up in boxes, and shipped downstream on the Missouri River. The Boons sold their rights to the mine in 1818 because of frequent confrontations with native Americans. The salt lick changed owners a couple more times before stopping production in about 1838.

 

From Boone's Lick we drove to Lexington, Missouri. In that town we found the Lafayette County Courthouse built in 1847. In 1854 a wing was added, and later a second floor. On the upper part of the last column on the left there is still a cannonball embedded in it. Notice the black dot in the picture above at the top of the column. Even with enlarging the picture it is a bit difficult to see. The bloody 3-day battle, fought in1861, was a win for the Missouri pro-Confederate State Guard.  The battlefield in Lexington  has a short-loop trail to walk. However, it was a cold windy day and we passed on doing that. From the history I read of the town, it once was a much larger,bustling town than it is now. We drove around some of the streets and found two older brick buildings- one built in 1846, and another in 1844. There is plenty of United States/Missouri history to be found in our state. What I wrote in this posting was just the first day of our weekend trip. Our goal the next day was to drive on highway 36. also dubbed as the "Genius Highway".  More Missouri history to be learned yet for sure, which will be covered in my next posting.

Site of Lexington Battlefield