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Home Page2008 Katy Trail Ride -- Fun Facts
Day 1 - June 16, 2008 - St. Charles to Hermann
- Femme Osage Creek is supposedly named by a French settler who encountered a dead Osage woman in the creek.
- Defiance was given its name after preventing Matson from having the only nearby rail stop.
- It was in the area of Matson that Daniel Boone and sons platted the town of Missouriton. Across the river is Tavern Cave.
- Dutzow is an old Slavic country place name.
- Charrette Creek is named for La Charrette, a small French settlement established in 1797.
- Peers is a rail town named for Judge Charles Peers, an MKT attorney.
- Treloar is named after a Harden College professor of music.
- Between Bernheimer and Gore is one of the most spectacular stretches of the trail.
- Gore is named for one of the financiers of the MK&E railroad.
Day 2 - June 17, 2008 - Hermann to Hartsburg
- Rhineland is a German-settled community. To immigrants, this area was reminiscent of the Rhine River region of Germany. Look for a couple of old churches to your right.
- In the vicinity south of Mile Marker 122.1, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark described the woodrat, a species new to science.
- One of the most impressive bridges along the Katy Trail crosses the Auxvasse River (French for swamps and morasses).
- Mokane is derivative of Missouri, Kansas and Eastern Railroad.
- Cote Sans Dessien (hill without design) was a small settlement established in 1808. Geographically, it is a lost hill not eroded by the Missouri River, 200 yards wide and 150 feet high. Members of the Sac and Fox tribes waged a major attack on the settlement in 1815.
- Lewis and Clark camped June 4, 1804, in the vicinity of 151.0.
- Hartsburg was built by the Missouri, Kansas and Eastern Railroad.
Day 3 - June 18, 2008 - Hartsburg to Boonville
- Easley was built by the railroad and named after its postmaster.
- The wreck of the steamboat Plowboy occurred near Mile Marker 163.7.
- Providence site was a popular river port community prior to the Civil War and was where the main route from the river to Columbia began.
- McBaine is named for Turner McBaine, a world class cattleman.
- Right past McBaine, the Perche Creek Bridge is crossed. Perche is a corruption of the French word for pierce and refers to a natural bridge hidden by foliage on the bluff at Mile Marker 166.9.
- There is a pictograph above Lewis and Clark Cave.
- Hidden up the creek drainage at 174.9 is the once popular Boone Cave, once a tour cave and now owned by the Missouri Department of Conservation.
- Just west of Rocheport, note the monument erected in honor of Edward D. “Ted” Jones and the contributions he made to Katy Trail State Park.
- Rocheport is a restored river port and railroad town. Antiques and bed and breakfasts dominate its commerce today.
- The stone-arched Rocheport tunnel is 243 feet long.
- The Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered curious paintings and carvings on this bluff as well as a den of rattlesnakes on June 7, 1804.
- Diana Bend Conservation Area is named for the steamboat Diana that sank here c.1836.
- It was in Franklin that the Santa Fe Trail began and Kit Carson learned the saddle-making trade before departing for the Rockies.
- The first newspaper west of St. Louis was printed in Franklin, which was relocated after the floods of 1826-1828.
- The Riverscene Bed and Breakfast in Boonville was the 1869 home of riverboat Capt. Kinney.
- Boonville (1817) was a frontier river port and rail station. More than 400 structures are in the National Register of Historic Places. Boonville was the site of the first Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River on June 17, 1861.
Day 4 - June 19, 2008 - Boonville to Sedalia
- Pilot Grove is an 1873 town built by the railroad and named for the grove of trees used as a landmark by travelers along the Osage Trace.
- Sedalia (1857) remains an important railroad town as Amtrak maintains a station here. The Department of Natural Resources restored the Katy Depot (1896).
- Sedalia is best known for the Missouri State Fair and the one-time home of Scott Joplin, who composed the “Maple Leaf Rag” here.
Day 5 - June 20, 2008 - Sedalia to Clinton
- Green Ridge was built as a railroad town between the Osage River and Lamine River watersheds.
- The high point of the Katy Trail is near Bryson, once called Kansas City Junction. Only an old schoolhouse and a few homes remain.
- Windsor was named for the castle in England.
- Calhoun, founded in 1835, is the oldest town in Henry County. Pottery factories once operated here, thus the nickname Jugtown.
- Lewis was once a thriving export center for coal.
- Clinton is the Henry County seat and home to the largest town square in Missouri.
