The Boonslick Today

The Historic Boonslick Region Missouri’s The Boone’s LickIn 1799, Road Daniel and Rebecca Boone moved from Kentucky and established a home in St. Charles County, Missouri. Their grown sons, CIVIL WAR Nathan and Daniel Morgan Missouri achieved statehood in 1821 as a result St. Louis, just to the east, would turn Danville into Boone, emigrated with a no-man’s land by the end of the Civil War. them. Two sources of salt of the famous “Missouri Compromise.” It was were discovered to the west, decreed that Missouri be admitted as a slave The Boonslick was isolated from the rest of north of the Missouri River - state, but thereafter no state north of the 36° the slave-holding South by the mountain region “salt licks”, which referred to 30’ North latitude in the Louisiana Territory known as the Ozark plateau, where (as elsewhere the practice of wild game to would be permitted to harbor the institution.” in the South) the slave culture did not take root. The Boonslick Today lick salt deposits appearing The Compromise left an Even as the 1860s arrived, The historic Boonslick region today reflects a rich mixture of its agricultural at the ground surface. One of transportation of goods and uneasy equilibrium that kept roots with educational and cultural activities that draw the attention of these sources was acquired agricultural products in and the country together until the the entire Midwest. At the center is the growing urban area of Columbia, by the Boone brothers, and troubles in Kansas began in out of the Boonslick depended home of the University of Missouri, the first land-grant institution west of Portrait of Daniel Boone hence was known as Boone’s the 1850s. inordinately on steamboats the Mississippi River. Festivals, art shows and farmers markets draw visitors Lick. The road which connected St. Charles to these sources became the The first consequence plying the Missouri and from around the state to Columbia, which has also become a regional Boonslick Road. Later, the entire region that straddled the Missouri River of Missouri’s admission as Mississippi. St. Louis, by then shopping hub. Rocheport, Boonville and Fayette to the west and northwest came to be known as the Boonslick. Now, it is better known as Missouri’s a slave state was a flood of a manufacturing center with a each offer unique attraction for history-minded visitors, as do Centralia “Little Dixie.” large proportion of European and Fulton to the northeast and east. The Boonslick Road originally ended in Howard County, Missouri, immigration by people of where the Boones’ salt works is now a Missouri State Historic Site. After Southern heritage, from states immigrant labor, stood squarely this road was extended westward from Howard County, the old Boonslick such as Tennessee, Kentucky between the Boonslick and the Road would become the Santa Fe Trail. This ancient thoroughfare later and Virginia. Southerners, like rest of the slave-holding South. became U.S. Highway 40 and finally modern Interstate 70. Easterners, were on the move In 1861, the area we now know The portrait that appears above was painted from life in 1820, the westward in the first half of as “Little Dixie” - the Boonslick same year Daniel Boone passed away at his son’s home near Defiance, the nineteenth century. Many - was the northernmost pocket Missouri. The home still stands 45 miles southeast of here, in St. Charles of these new Missourians located in the fertile of Southern and slave-holding sympathies County, and is a popular visitors attraction. The artist is Chester Harding, Missouri River valley; Some brought slaves, and in all of the United States. By early 1862, the whose son Chester Harding, Jr. was a colonel in the Union army who many others who did not own slaves brought Confederacy lost any opportunity it ever had figured prominently in Missouri’s Civil War. with them a tolerance for the slave culture. to control the Boonslick by force of arms, and The area of central Missouri having the regular Confederate armies were operating out highest proportion of slave-holders came to be of Arkansas. It was simple geography, and some known as the “Boonslick.” The boundaries of say a heavy-handed military administration of a this territory are subject to conjecture, then as population sympathetic to Southern viewpoints, now, but in this part of Missouri the boundary that brought about the fierce guerrilla style of can be laid out along the deep valley of the warfare, practiced by both sides, that most people Loutre River that exists 2 1/2 miles west of here. associate with Missouri’s Civil War. Jesse Hall, Columbia, MO This natural barrier, the existence of German All of these factors helped to bring about Danville’s date with destiny, October 14, 1864. settlements centered at Hermann, only 15 miles Photo and Image Credits: Boone portrait used by permission of the to the south, and of a railroad tying commerce to Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky Learn more at www.mocivilwar.org Photos courtesy Columbia Daily Tribune The Booslick Road near Calwood, MO