MO 94 west of Marthasville has a rural historic district

Five miles west of Marthasville, MO 94 passes a small district built around the heart of an old 110-acre farm. The Starke-Meinershagen-Boeke Rural Historic District covers about five acres and includes seven contributing buildings.

Its two-story brick house and brick smokehouse date from about 1863 to 1870. Five frame outbuildings came later. Together, the buildings show how one Warren County farm changed from hand-worked farming toward machine-assisted commercial production.

The National Register history follows three family names across that change: Starke, Meinershagen, and Boeke. Its period of significance runs from about 1864 to 1931, when John Boeke died and the property was sold on the courthouse steps. What looks like one farmstead along MO 94 holds nearly seven decades of Warren County farm life.