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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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