| 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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