Karen’s Opinion

We found a terrific way to beat the heat while traveling on our way home from visiting Branson, Missouri. We took a tour of the Meramec Caverns near Stanton Missouri. The temperature of the cave is a constant 58 degrees. Did you know that Missouri is home to more than 6,000 surveyed caves? Well, it is and we visited just one of them.

Meramec Caverns is open every day of the year and is very affordable. We saved a few dollars by using coupons we found in a pamphlet at the hotel. Free kennels are available for your pets.

The paths we walked on were very well lit and our guide was very informative. I wouldn’t recommend this tour if you have trouble walking. There is one part of the tour where we had to climb 57 steps. That part of the tour is optional but I recommend the climb because the prize at the top of the stairs is awesome. The ancient limestone “Wine Table” formation is only found at Meramec Caverns and in Italy. I can’t remember what our guide said that made this formation unusual. Something about being in water and 4 legs. Can anyone fill me in on this?

Artifacts traceable to the infamous Jesse James were found in the cave. It is said that Jesse James used the cave as a hideout when running from the law.

from the official Meramec Caverns website:

In the summer of 1941, Missouri was in the midst of a rather severe drought. A drought so intense, it not only dropped the rivers and streams above ground, but the water table itself also depleted. At that time, the main level of Meramec Caverns seemed to ‘dead end’ at a wall with a small pool of water spilling out below. With the drop of the water table, the pool of water below the wall receded nearly six inches and allowed a cool, breeze to push into the cave between the wall’s bottom and top of the water. Les Dill was alerted of this change by his cave guides, and, being the adventurous man he was, Dill elected to go under the wall, through the water, and see what was on the other side. Once past the wall, Les was opened to yet another large area of branching networks…even more cave. It was here, too, Les found the artifacts traceable to the infamous Jesse James and the cave was dubbed ‘Jesse James Hideout’.

The Meramec website states that evidence of Jesse and Frank James using the cavern as a hideout consists of sheriffs reports, eye witness accounts, and physical material found inside the cave. Among the artifacts found inside the cave (at Loot Rock) were strong boxes traceable to the train robbery at Gadshill, MO, rifles, and shackles. We were able to see some of these artifacts! I don’t know why I am excited over seeing evidence. It makes me uncomfortable that so much hoopla is made over a law breaker.

A nice, albeit cheesy, tribute is given as a slide-projected American flag appears on the limestone curtain in the theatre room and Kate Smith belts out “God Bless America”.

70 feet high, 60 feet wide and 35 feet thick Theatre Room
Meramec Caverns were introduced to the public as a tourist attraction in 1935 by Lester B. Dill. He is the guy who invented the bumper sticker as a means of promoting the caverns!

This is a Guest Post brought to you by Brooks Range.

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I have been to a few tourist attractions that encouraged everyone to “Ride the Ducks”. I never had the chance to ride the ducks until we visited Branson last week. I highly recommend the adventure. Riding the duck was a great way to learn a bit of history about Branson and about the ducks. We were also treated to a little relief from the 98 degree temperatures as we traveled down the streets and country roads of Branson. With the wind blowing our hair, the duck plunged into the beautiful waters of Table Rock lake.

The showboat, Branson Belle, was waiting along the shore of Table Rock lake.
She would soon fill up with tourists anxious to be entertained by the six-member all-male vocal group The ShowMen!


I was not compensated in any way to talk about these fun sight-seeing adventures.

My great niece and I ran to touch the arch while my son was parked illegally. Let me back up.

We were on our way to Branson, Missouri and stopped to visit my son and daughter in-law on the way. They live in St. Louis. My great niece had never been to the arch so we decided to drive to the river front and let her see it. Well, she wanted to touch it so I agreed to run up the zillion stairs with her and she was able to touch the arch. No one else in our group wanted to go so my son let us hop out of the car instead of searching for a place to park and then walk several blocks to the arch.

We were talking about the arch and how it came to be. I couldn’t remember all the details so I looked up the information and this is what I found.

From Wikipedia:

It was built as a monument to the westward expansion of the United States. At 630 feet (192 m), it is the tallest man-made monument in the United States, Missouri’s tallest accessible building, and the largest architectural structure designed as a weighted or flattened catenary arch.

In late 1933, civic leader Luther Ely Smith, returning to St. Louis from the George Rogers Clark National Historical Park in Vincennes, Indiana, beheld the crumbling St. Louis riverfront area and envisioned that building a memorial there would both revive the riverfront and stimulate the economy.
In December, the JNEMA discussed organizing an architectural competition to determine the design of the monument.

The competition comprised two stages—the first to narrow down the designers to five and the second to single out one architect and his design. The design intended to include:

“(a) an architectural memorial or memorials to Jefferson; dealing (b) with preservation of the site of Old St. Louis — landscaping, provision of an open-air campfire theater, reerection or reproduction of a few typical old buildings, provision of a Museum interpreting the Westward movement; (c) a living memorial to Jefferson’s ‘vision of greater opportunities for men of all races and creeds;’ (d) recreational facilities, both sides of the river; and (e) parking facilities, access, relocation of railroads, placement of an interstate highway.”

Saarinen the winner of the competition and awarded the checks—$40,000 to his team and $50,000 to Saarinen. The competition was the first major architectural design that Saarinen developed unaided by his father Eliel.

On May 25, the United States Territorial Expansion Memorial Commission endorsed the design. Later, in June, the NPS approved the proposal. Representative H. R. Gross, however, opposed the allocation of federal funds for the arch’s development.

The design drew varied responses. While an architectural critic from The New York Times designated the arch “a modern monument, fitting, beautiful and impressive,” some local residents likened it to a “stupendous hairpin and a stainless steel hitching post.” The most aggressive criticism emerged from Gilmore D. Clarke, who compared the proposal to an arch imagined by fascist Benito Mussolini, rendering the arch a fascist symbol. Wurster and the jury refuted the charges, arguing that “the arch fform was not inherently fascist but was indeed part of the entire history of architecture.” Saarinen considered the opposition absurd, asserting, “It’s just preposterous to think that a basic form, based on a completely natural figure, should have any ideological connection.”

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