Road Trip – Missouri (Part 9)

After driving through the Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge, we drove back to Brookfield Missouri, where we were overnighting at a Best Western Hotel.  Restaurant choices in the area seemed a bit ‘sketchy’, so we had asked the desk clerk where we should eat...

…and we had considered the Main Street Restaurant as being a bit questionable when we first glimpsed it.  Pigskin Pub and Pizza is a hole in the wall on a side street in Brookfield Missouri.  It didn’t look promising at all!  What the heck, with limited options and a recommendation, we headed in to check it out.

With its brick walls, modern ceiling fans, signing and the bar, the interior of Pigskin Pizza was a step up from the exterior.  I have to say that it’s the first restaurant we’ve been in that had a tire on the ceiling.  It got busier while we were there and it’s apparently a very popular restaurant and pub for the locals.

This busy and colorful large chalkboard menu on the wall will give you an idea of the range of the offerings available at Pigskin Pub and Pizza.  There were written menus as well…

We ordered a 12 inch pizza…pepperoni and Italian sausage. ($14.00) What can I say, it was not only excellent but it was one of the best we’ve had in the last couple of years.  To begin with, the crust was nice and thin, the way we like it.  There was plenty of sausage and pepperoni…no skimping! 

I failed to mention that we also ordered a dozen chicken wings with Thai Sweet Chili Sauce.  The menu states that 8 – 10 wings…and we received 10, cost $12.00.  At between $1.20 and $1.50 per wing, seeing as we’ve seen them as high a $2.00 per wing, the price was right.  In addition these wings were not from small chickens!  They were big and meaty…and excellent!

Pigskin Pub and Pizza is located at 119 East Brooks Street in Brookfield Missouri.  Phone: 660-258-2600.  They are open every day of the week…and until 1:30 AM on Friday and Saturday nights.  They are on Facebook at Pigskin Pub & Pizza | Brookfield MO | Facebook.

History: Brookfield in located in Linn County Missouri.  The town was first surveyed in 1859 by John Wood Brooks from Boston Massachusetts.  The town and 4 streets in the town are named after him.  The town has had a post office since 1860.  In the early days, the area that is now Brookfield was referred to as “The Scatters” or “Duffy’s Pond”.  The Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad was completed in 1959 and Brookfield boomed when the railroad’s division headquarters was moved to the city.  Brookfield has a population of 4,111 and Linn County has 11,874 residents.

FYI – Every Labor Day weekend, Brookfield hosts a hot air balloon festival known as the Great Pershing Balloon Derby.  Balloonists from around the USA participate and it is the longest running sanctioned ballooning even in the USA.  The festival is named in honor of General John J. Pershing, leader of American forces during World War I.

The next morning we headed over to nearby Marceline Missouri.  This is a photo of Marceline’s “Main Street USA”.  The town is located in both Linn and Chariton Counties.  Marceline is a bit newer than nearby Brookfield.  It was laid out in 1887, and it was named after the wife of a railroad man.  A post office was opened here in the same year.

Like Carroll County in a previous post, Chariton County was primarily settled by immigrants from the Upper South, especially from Kentucky and Tennessee.  They quickly began cultivating crops familiar to those raised at their previous farms, primarily hemp and tobacco.  This was the part of Missouri that was nicknamed “Little Dixie”.  The area was heavily pro-Confederate during America’s Civil War.

The Carnegie Library in Marceline is unusual in that it is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Back in 1914, a reading room was set up in the rear of the Marceline First National Bank Building.  Then 300 books were donated by the Women’s Civic League.  In 1917, the Civic League wrote a letter to the Carnegie Institution to try to secure a Carnegie Library.  In return, they received a $12,500 grant for building this library.  Monies were raised by the community to match up with the Carnegie grant and the town raised taxes to support its operation.  The property was purchased in 1918 and the new Carnegie Library opened on November 1, 1920.

Factoid: Several famous or well-known persons lived in either Linn or Chariton Counties Missouri.  They include: Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer; former long-time Senator, J. William Fulbright; General Maxwell Taylor; 4 Star General John J. Pershing, and; Walt Disney.  Then there was Sterling Price, United States Congressman, Governor of Missouri and Confederate General in the Civil War.

More about a couple of these famous personages in the next couple of posts from our Missouri Road Trip…but first I'm taking a break to cover more recent activities and items related to home in East Tennessee.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for continuing to follow us on our Missouri adventures!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave