It’s a wonderful Missouri Life, and we invite you to come and celebrate the best of it with us. The Best of Missouri Life Festival is a weekend-long celebration of the food, wine, art, music, other products made in Missouri, and the cultural heritage of the state.

Multiple venues centered around downtown Boonville and the Missouri Life building will host an art show, wine tasting, cultural heritage speakers, performers, reenactors, displays and musical entertainers. Here is what we’ve already confirmed, and more will be added weekly as we continue to confirm plans.

Save the date, and make your room reservations now!

All events are free, except for the wine tasting, food, and a few other selected specialties.

To download an Event Schedule and Festival Map, CLICK HERE!

 

 

Missouri Life Building

Made in Missouri show (main floor)
Art Show, featuring Best of Missouri Hands artists (second floor)
Wine Tasting (both floors)

Regional Cuisines and Wine Pairing Tastings
4 PM and 6 PM Friday
Noon, 2 PM, 4 PM, and 6 PM Saturday

 

Katy Trail Museum

A High Wheeler (with a little one for the kids to try out) who will perform Mark Twain’s Taming the Bicycle from his collection of essays, What Is Man?”

Tour the Katy Boonville Caboose Museum, which is inside the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Caboose, right alongside the Katy Trail and next to the old station house that now houses the Chamber of Commerce and the Museum. 8 AM to 5 PM Saturday

 

 

 

Cooper County Jail

Tour the historic Old Cooper County Jail, built in 1848 and the oldest continuously used county jail until its closing in 1978. Meet its most famous prisoner Frank James, brother of Jesse. Frank (portrayed by reenactor) was brought to the jail and charged with a robbery in the county, but sympathetic Boonville citizens raised his bond within a matter of hours.

 

 

Roslyn Heights

Tour one of Boonville’s proudest mansions, now the state headquarters for the Missouri Daughters of the American Revolution. The Queen Anne-style mansion was built in 1895 and in one room honors all the Missourians who played a role in the Revolution.

 

 

 

 

 

On Closed Streets and Other Outdoor Locations

•Wire Making demonstration
•Food Vendors
•Missouri Craft Beer Tastings
•Barrel-making demonstration
•Medicine Wagon and Professor Farquar, who will also be performing Jesse James ballads
•Hannah Cole reenactor (Hannah Cole was a widow with 7 children who was among the first group of settlers to Boonville)
•Conestoga Wagon, an exact replica of the wagons that went West
•Calamity Jane reenactor

•Pampered Chef cooking show at Imhoff's Appliance on Morgan Street, proceeds to benefit breast cancer reserarch

•Steam engine demonstration

•Children's pioneer games
•Interactive children's mural project with Stuart Morse, nationally known artist

•Historic Presbyterian Church open house and continental breakfast

•Cinco de Mayo celebration at WJ's featuring classic rock
•Independent KATY Trail bike ride (meet at KATY Depot): Saturday, 8:30 AM from Depot to Rocheport and back (approximately 13 miles); Sunday, 8:30 AM from Depot to Pilot Grove and back (approximately 9 miles)

Garden club sale
Boonville Pedestrian Bridge
The Rubber Duckies let out in Glasgow that morning come into town on the Missouri River.
Rain Barrel Water Run-off Control Demonstration

Morgan Street Stage

•Megan Boyer Blues Band, 5 PM Friday
•The Passion, 8 PM Friday
•Yellow Dog, 10 PM Friday

•Auset, 1 PM Saturday
•Pat Boone's Farm, 5 PM Saturday
•Blues Band Henry Clay and the Full-Grown Men, 7 PM Saturday

•Marissa & Michael, Noon Sunday
•Prospect Hummer, 2 PM Sunday

 

Veteran’s Park

Hot dog, chips, and a coke for $1.50

 

Thespian Hall

Friday

6 PM Civil War Spy, performance by Barney Bradshaw
8 PM Killer Diller, locally filmed movie

Saturday

2 PM Bad Blood: The Border War that triggered the Civil War,

award-winning film

4 PM World's Greatest Fair, film about the 1904

Missouri World's Fair

7 PM Mark Twain Himself, performance by Richard Garey

 

 

 

 

Isle of Capri

Concert with David Lee Murphy known for his hit song "Dust on the Bottle"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frederick Hotel

Jazz & Jambalaya
Jack Schultz Trio
Jaynee the Titanic maid

Truman Reenactor

 

 

 

 

Turner Hall

Heritage Speaker Series

Friday

1 PM Great Fire of 1849 St. Louis, Barney Bradshaw

2 PM Missouri 340 Canoe Race on the Missouri River, Bryan Hopkins

3 PM Driving Every Road in the State, John Robinson,

Missouri Life's King of the Road

4 PM Lewis and Clark in Missouri, Jim Harlan

5 PM Harry S. Truman, Niel Johnson

7 PM Underground Railroad in Missouri, Harriet Tubman, Aquila Butler

Saturday

10 AM Missourians on the Titanic, Jaynee the Titanic Maid

10:30 AM Native Americans in Missouri, Tracy Tullie

11:30 AM Missourians on the Titanic, Jaynee the Titanic Maid

Noon Civil War in Missouri, James Denny

1 PM Lee and Grant in St. Louis, Chris Gordon

Sunday

11 AM Steve McQueen in Missouri, Dan Viets

Noon Daniel Boone, Barney Combs and Robert Pecoraro

1 PM Walt Disney's Childhood and Career Start in Missouri, Dan Viets

2 PM Missouri Legends, John Brown

3 PM Winston Churchill in Missouri, Warren Hollrah

4 PM Lee and Grant in St. Louis, Chris Gordon

 

Special Community Participation

New Hope Christian Church bake sale, Friday only
United Church of Christ Youth Group Book and Bake Sale, Saturday
Church Services, variety of historic churches, Sunday
Main Street Retailers, special visitors and displays
Pancake Breakfast, Stein House, Sunday morning

Shuttle Service and Parking

We will run a shuttle on May 2 & May 3

Departure times from the Casino:
May 2. 5:30, 7:30 and 9:30 PM
May 3rd. 1:30, 3:30, 5:30, 7:30, 9:30, and 11:30 PM

We will pick up at the Courthouse Lawn and Thespian Hall

Estimated pick up time for the Courthouse will be 37 minutes after the
hour and estimated pick up time for Thespian Hall will be 40 minutes
after the hour.

Parking

•LSE Middle School
Corner of Spruce and Main, Saturday and Sunday only

•Kemper Military School
Third Street, all weekend

•First Baptist Church (and empty lot)
Corner of Center and Main, Friday and Saturday, after 1 PM on Sunday

•Boonville Public Library
Corner of Locust and Main, evenings and Sunday

•Sixth Street Parking Lots
Between High and Vine streets, all weekend