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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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