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Iron County, Missouri
The
motto of Iron
County, Missouri -- “Where every drive is scenic,
and every stop historic” – is a fitting acknowledgment of
this east-central Missouri county’s distinctive mix of
natural wonder and American history. The majority of the
county’s 11,000 citizens reside in the six biggest towns --
Annapolis, Arcadia, Des Arc, Ironton (the county seat), Pilot
Knob and Viburnum.
Area attractions include a bounty of state parks. Taum
Sauk Mountain, at 1,772 feet, is the highest point
in Missouri. From its peak flows Mina Sauk Falls, the tallest
wet-weather waterfall in the state. The three-mile Mina Sauk
Falls Trail takes hikers through a portion of the famed Ozark
Trail, on down to Devil’s Tollgate, an eight-foot-wide
passage through volcanic ryhyolite standing 30 feet high.
Further down the trail is
Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park. Here’s how the
park got its unusual name: Over a billion years ago, hot
volcanic ash and gases spewed into the air, then cooled
forming igneous rock. Shallow seas pooled in the craters, and
the waters of the Black River became confined, or “shut
in” to a narrow channel.
Other area attractions are the gigantic granite boulders at Elephant
Rocks State Park, also formed by the cooled magma
of volcanic eruptions from centuries past.
A great deal of Iron County – and 28 other Missouri counties
– consists of the Mark
Twain National Forest, established by Presidential
Proclamation on September 11, 1939. The forest’s 1.5 million
acres spans the southern half of Missouri, and represents 11
percent of all forested land in Missouri. The forest includes
seven federally designated wildernesses and numerous
historical and archaeological sites.
Other state parks and historical sites within a 10-mile radius
of Arcadia Valley, the center of Iron County:
Fort
Davidson State Historical Site,
Millstream
Gardens Conservation Area, (home of the yearly
Missouri Whitewater Championships), Marble
Creek
Recreational Area and the
Silvermines
Recreational Area.
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