State Parks
South of a great bend in the Meramec River and just a mile upstream from the Shaw Nature Reserve is a pleasant little park. The initial 1,100-acre tract of Robertsville State Park in east-central Franklin County was purchased by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources in 1979 as part of the state’s commitment to the …
Motorists heading south from St. Louis toward Hillsboro may not realize when they cross Sandy Creek on State Route 21 that located just a short distance downstream is one of Missouri’s last remaining covered bridges. Once fairly numerous, the covered bridges still standing numbered only eleven by 1942.
The land that would one day become Watkins Mill State Park & Historic Site was purchased on this date in 1839. Or at least a part of it was. Waltus Watkins purchased the first 80-acres of what would one day become a 3,660-acre enterprise including the famous Woolen Mill. Watkins was born in 1806 in …