The Almanac
The Missouri Almanac
This is the porch half of Missouri Porch — 849 short, true notes about the places, people, and quirks of the state: river towns, courthouse squares, lake edges, lost towns, and the county lines that reveal more than you would expect. Each one has source links. No task required — pick a thread and wander.
Tonight's shelf
Nine from the collection, spread across the state — a different mix each time we restock it.
Northern Missouri
Northern-Missouri agriculture and rural land
Adair County is an agricultural county, so buyers of rural land should expect active farming nearby and understand Missouri's right-to-farm context.
Read this note ->Northern Missouri
Elrod Mill Access turns a Platte River stop into local history
Elrod Mill Access northeast of Savannah is an MDC Platte River access with a late-1800s mill story attached to the site.
Read this note ->Northern Missouri
Big Lake State Park sits on a Missouri River oxbow
Big Lake is one of Missouri's few natural oxbow lakes, left behind by the Missouri River, and the state park is a notable public outdoor amenity in an otherwise farm-and-river county.
Read this note ->Central Missouri / Missouri River Corridor
The A.P. Green refractories and Mexico's fire-brick legacy
Mexico's economy was long tied to refractories and fire-brick manufacturing, especially the A.P. Green company.
Read this note ->Southwest Missouri
Flat Creek has official access points in Barry County
MDC access areas on Flat Creek give Barry County a local public-water layer beyond Roaring River and Table Rock Lake.
Read this note ->Southwest Missouri
Row crops and cattle anchor Barton County's farm economy
Federal farm census data shows row crops (soybeans and corn) and cattle anchor Barton County's farm economy, and that shapes rural roads, land use, and the rules around farms near homes.
Read this note ->Kansas City Region
Why the county seat sits at Butler's courthouse square
Butler's courthouse square is the civic heart of Bates County, and the seat's location and the square's layout reflect how the county was organized in the 19th century, useful context for visitors and new residents
Read this note ->Lake of the Ozarks / Osage Region
Cole Camp gives Benton County a Low German heritage anchor
Cole Camp's own history page points to German heritage, heritage events, and Low German speech as part of Benton County's identity.
Read this note ->Southeast Missouri / Lead Belt / Mississippi Corridor
Bollinger Mill and the Burfordville Covered Bridge anchor the county
The county's signature historic place is a state-run mill and one of Missouri's surviving covered bridges, the right anchor for understanding local settlement and the Whitewater River.
Read this note ->The collections
Curated trails through Missouri
Each one strings together the towns and stories of a single theme — float streams, Katy Trail towns, the Missouri Rhineland, Route 66, the Civil War border, and more.
Ozark Float Streams
Missouri's Ozark float rivers run cold, clear, and spring-fed, and access is organized around public river accesses managed by state and federal agencies. The Current and Jacks Fork sit inside the Ozark National Scenic Riverways, the Eleven Point is a federally protected Wild and Scenic River, and county-level notes explain where floating, flood maps, and access points actually meet the water.
12 places and stories ->Katy Trail Towns
The Katy Trail runs across Missouri on a former rail corridor, beginning in St. Charles County and reaching its western trailhead at Clinton in Henry County. Along the way it threads Missouri River towns and restored depots, and these county notes mark where the trail meets the river, the historic Katy Bridge at Boonville, and trail-town anchors like Sedalia and Marthasville.
10 places and stories ->Missouri River Rhineland
The Missouri Rhineland is the German-settled stretch of the Missouri River valley, where nineteenth-century immigrants planted a wine and river-town culture that still defines places like Hermann, Washington, and Dutzow. These notes cover the anchor towns, the Deutschheim state historic site, and the wider German-heritage settlement pattern along and near the river corridor.
8 places and stories ->Lake of the Ozarks
Lake of the Ozarks is a multi-county Ameren-managed reservoir behind Bagnell Dam, where a lake address layers extra rulebooks onto ordinary property: dock permits, private roads, sewer districts, and short-term-rental rules. These notes span Camden, Miller, Morgan, and Benton counties and cover the shoreline manager, county-line quirks, and the state parks and springs around the water.
11 places and stories ->Route 66 in Missouri
Route 66 crossed Missouri from the St. Louis area through Springfield, which claims the highway's birthplace, and on toward Joplin. These notes trace the surviving corridor town by town: the Meramec Caverns and Red Cedar Inn stretch, Cuba's murals, Devil's Elbow, the Munger Moss at Lebanon, and the well-preserved Halltown and Paris Springs run.
10 places and stories ->Civil War and the Border
Missouri was bitterly divided during the Civil War, and the fighting ranged from formal battles to guerrilla raids and the depopulation of whole counties under General Order No. 11. These notes mark the battlefields, historic sites, and hard local stories from Wilson's Creek and Lexington to Pilot Knob, Osceola, and the Little Dixie river counties, handled with care.
13 places and stories ->Lost and Renamed Towns
Some Missouri places moved, were renamed, or disappeared entirely under reservoirs and shifting county seats. These notes cover towns like old Linn Creek drowned by Bagnell Dam and Greenville relocated for Wappapello Lake, county seats that moved off flood-prone rivers, a county first organized under a different name, and living-history recreations of vanished settlements.
9 places and stories ->Where to wander next
More ways into the collection
The Almanac pulls its stories from every corner of the site. Here is where the threads lead.
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