Road Trip – Missouri (Part 4)

…continuing with our road trip ‘adventures’ through southern and north central Missouri, as we slowly made our way along back roads toward Omaha Nebraska and a family visit.

You can never completely judge a ‘book by its cover’.  Just because a small town doesn’t look very prosperous, doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything good for wandering tourists to discover.  Birch Tree Missouri is a town in Shannon County Missouri with a population of only 541 residents as per the 2020 census.  It was interesting to note that 6 more people lived in Birch Tree in 2020 than did back in 1890.  Most of these little lumber towns shrank...

There has been a post office here in Birch Tree since the 1860s.  The town was named for a grove of birch trees near the original town site.  Shannon County as a whole only has a population of a touch over 7,000.  The county was named after a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition…George F. “Peg Leg” Shannon.

We had expected that we’d stop for lunch in Winona Missouri…but the restaurant we were looking for was no longer in business.  So we continued on to Birch Tree…and there we spotted Grandma Nell’s.  We were a little dubious given the parking lot but there were plenty of customers when we arrived at the end of ‘normal’ lunch hours.

By the time we took this photo though, only a few tables behind us were occupied.  The dining room was neat and clean…just about what we would expect in a small town restaurant.  Laurie did take note of that special on the chalk board…and I am glad she did!

Laurie ordered what is probably her favorite sandwich, (other than a good lobster roll), a patty melt on grilled marbled rye bread with French fries.  I don’t remember the price, but then again, nothing at Grandma Nell’s was very pricy.  That was a nice change from what we experience in most towns…

IN ANY CASE, Laurie said that this was the very best Patty Melt Sandwich she had EVER had! 

So back to that chalk board with the daily special… I was going to order a burger to be ‘safe’ but Laurie pointed out that the special was a Pork Tenderloin Sandwich with Fries…for only $7.00!  When it was served, I noted that it wasn’t a small sandwich by any means…and it was excellent! 

Service was great, the price was right and the food was very good indeed!  We would recommend Grandma Nell’s to anyone without hesitation… This restaurant is located at 9023 East 1^st Street in Birch Tree Missouri.  Phone: 573-292-1117.  Grandma Nell’s is found on Facebook at Gramma Nell's | Birch Tree MO | Facebook.

The real reason we drove into Birch Tree was that I’d discovered that this little town still has an old St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad depot.  It is a small one and I’m not sure when it was built, but I think was before 1905 or 1908 at the latest.   How small is it?  The ticket office measures about 5’ x 8’.  The passenger waiting room is only 12’ x 15’ and the freight room measures 21’ x 23’. 

The caboose is called an extended-vision version.  The sides of the cupola project beyond the sides of the car body.  The expanded cupola allowed the crew to see past the top of the taller rail cars that began to appear after WWII and they also increase the roominess of the cupola area.

In this area of southern Missouri during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the money was all about timber.  Shannon County boasted 3 steam-powered mills and one water-powered mill, which combined produced 1,350,000 feet of lumber in 1880.   The Cordz-Fisher Lumber and Mining Company was based in Birch Tree.

I love this old photo which shows this little depot still in use back in 1951.  That's 'only' 72 years ago...

By the early 1900s, little choice pine timber remained near Grandin.  Missouri Lumber and Mining moved north.  This move was made even more tempting…and profitable…when the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway Company (Frisco) purchased the Kansas City, Springfield and Memphis Railroad in 1901.  Shannon County had been fairly isolated until that point and to sweeten the pot, the railroad offered MLM reduced rates to ship from the county.  By 1909, MLM had actually packed up the Grandin Mill and moved it to Shannon County.

Note: Missouri’s first copper mine was opened in Shannon County in 1846.  The state’s only manganese mine was opened as part of the war effort during WWII.

This interesting brick structure is the Administration Building at the Missouri State Fruit Experiment Station near Mountain Grove Missouri. Built in 1900, this Tudor Revival style building rests on a limestone block foundation.  With its corner tower and conical roof, plus those pediment style gables and scrolled brackets, it is a distinctive building.  It is scheduled to be refurbished...

The Missouri State Fruit Experiment Station is part of the William H. Darr College of Agriculture at Missouri State University.  This facility, which includes a number of newer structures, conducts plant science research programs and advisory programs in commercial fruit crops and public education. 

The railroads had encouraged farmers in Missouri to buy land along their rail lines for fruit raising.  Their main selling point was that the railroads could easily take crops to city and regional markets.  By 1890, Missouri was the largest fruit raising state in the United States.  The area around Mountain Grove was the center of this growth.  Orchards of 500 to 3,000 trees were common. 

At the time that the Missouri State Fruit Experiment Station was established by an act of the Missouri Legislature in 1899, and until 1913, it was the only experiment station in the United States devoted exclusively to fruit culture.  By the mid-1970s…before this building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places…the work done here had led to 10 new varieties of apples, 7 new peaches, 11 new plums, 12 new grapes, a new crabapple and 1 new type of raspberry.

This building is referred to as the Mountain Grove City Hall or the City Hall and Jail…although it no longer serves either purpose.  This 2-story flat-roofed building is clad with unfinished native field stone with beaded mortar joints…a technique referred to as “Ozark rock” or “giraffe rock” construction.  Its construction was built using the Great Depression’s Works Progress Administration funds using local labor.  The style is referred to as “WPA Moderne”.  

As the sign in front of the building states, this is now the home for The Mountain Grove Central Arts and History Council, an organization that promotes visual arts, music and literature.  See: The Mountain Grove Central Arts and History Council | Facebook.

Mountain Grove lies at 1,525 feet above sea level in the south-central part of Missouri and has had a post office since 1875.  It was named Mountain Grove due to its location on a ridge in a grove of trees.  The town has a population of 4,313.

History:

         ·         One famous incident in Mountain Grove was in the middle of May in 1883.  What was termed a “nipping frost” caused every tree, sapling and shrub to be damaged…looking like they’d been cut clean from an axe. 

         ·         Another incident occurred in Mountain Grove in May of 1897.  Twenty masked men were out looking for Elijah Mayfield.  He wasn’t at home so they tried to burn the house down.  Elijah’s father put the fire out.  Then the mob rode to another nearby home…and finding the home barricaded, they opened fire on the residence, killing two occupants. (Not Mayfield…who wasn’t there) Following an investigation and threats against witnesses, the jury (made up of intimidated local citizens), found that the two victims had been killed “at the hands of parties unknown”.  I couldn’t find out what ever happened to Elijah Mayfield...

In my next post, we will finally reach that critical stop on our backroads journey…the one needed to keep Laurie happy.  If I’d timed it badly, it wouldn’t have been a good thing!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave