The Alton Advertiser Features Surrounding Area Attractions

AREA ATTRACTIONS
Alton, MO 65606
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ALTON CITY PARK CITY OF ALTON, PINEY CREEK PARK
The ELEVEN POINT NATIONAL SCENIC RIVER has never been greatly altered by timber harvest and other development activities. It offers 44 miles of stream for float trips, camping, and has available - hot showers, lodging, store, fishing tackle, fishing licenses, trout tags, canoeing, hiking, cave exploration, guided deer and turkey hunts on public and private land, guided fishing for trout, walleye, and smallmouth.
GREER SPRING AND TRAIL has a nine-tenths mile trail that descends to the second largest spring in Missouri. Homesteaded by Thomas Simpson in 1845. Samuel Greer and his father purchased 40 acres in 1859, and had a mill operating in the gorge by 1860. While the younger Greer was serving with the Confederate troops, other Confederates burned the family mill. The mill was rebuilt after the war, and expanded in 1870. Because of the steep grade, oxen were trained to haul grain up and down the hill without a driver! Increasing demand for milling, but no room for further expansion forced Greer to rebuild his mill 3/4 mile away, atop the ridge, and convey power by a series of cables. Around 1900, Greer (then called Big Ozark) was thought to be the largest spring in the state. Milling ceased in 1920. Property was owned and used as a family retreat by Louis Dennig family, 1922-1988. After efforts to establish a water bottling plant, property was sold to U.S. Forest Service in 1993. Spring is accessed only by hiking a .9 mile trail from a trailhead sign on Missouri Hwy 19. The area surrounding and including Greer Mill is reserved for exclusive use of the Dennig family until 2013, and the old trail is CLOSED.
IRISH WILDERNESS offers 18 miles of hiking trails in 16,500 acres of natural wilderness.
MCCORMACK LAKE RECREATIONAL AREA provides a picnic area, 8 camp sites and good fishing for large mouth bass, sunfish, and channel catfish in the 15 acre lake.
FALLING SPRING - PICNIC AREA has a spring flowing from a rock bluff, Falling Spring Mill, and historic log cabin. The site has been popular for weddings, family outings, and photographers. The area was bought by the Forest Service from Emil Slovak in the spring of 1966. The first house built at Falling Spring was the old log cabin which is over 100 years old. A blacksmith shop once stood between the house and the cave entrance north of the spring outlet. At one time there was a barn on the hill above the cemetery, which served as a valuable shelter in time of flood. According to Mr. Walter Brown, former owner, said flood used to be more common on Hurricane Creek. The first mill used a wooden water wheel. The second is the present mill which was built between 1927 and 1929.
OZARK TRAIL offers 30 miles of hiking trails.
TURNER MILL NORTH PICNIC AREA provides easy access to a historic water wheel from the old mill. Founder of Turners Mill in 1893, was James Letcher Clay Turner. The mill was self-sustaining. The Forestry Service acquired historic Turners Mill in 1970. Only the rustic over-shot wheel in the spring remains.
TURNER MILL SOUTH has canoe launch, boat launching ramp, small boat dock and handicap accessible restrooms.
GRAND GULF STATE PARK with it's natural features, is a spectacular collapsed chasmthat is three-quarters of a mile long. 50 to 200 feet wide and up to 120 feet deep. A portion of the collapsed cavern's roof remains and forms one of the largest natural bridges in Missouri. Other geologic features include an underground stream, cave, and one of the outstanding Ozark examples of subterranean stream piracy. Interesting terrestrial communities include moist and dry limestone/dolomite cliffs. Water flowing into the remaining portion of the cave has been traced to Mammoth Spring, AR by Toney Aid of West Plains, MO. Take Hwy 19 S about 25 miles from Alton.
BRUSHY PONDNATURAL AREA is an upland marsh and swamp, habitats to rare and endangered species grass. This is an excellent example of a sinkhole pond marsh in the Lower Ozarks Section of the Ozark Natural Division. Brushy Pond contains three rare sedges, Carex alata, Carex comosa and Carex decomposita as well as the rare manna grass. All four species are known only from sinkhole ponds in Missouri. It is accessed from Hwy 19, 18 miles north of Alton.
HANEY POND (one of three examples in Missouri): A forested acid seep and pond shrub swamp located in the Lower Ozarks Section of the Ozark Section of the Ozark Natural Division. Dominated by sweet gum trees, the forested acid seep is characterized by a seasonally wet basin fed by several outlets and a ground flora of sedges, mosses, royal fern, mountain mint and manna grass. Buttonbush and rose mallow occur in the pond shrub swamp. The Bellevue Trail, a historic route in colonial Missouri, traverses the area.
TUPELO GUM POND's natural features include a 5-acre sinkhole pond with swamp vegetation and ringed with swamp tupelo trees (common to the swamps of the Mississippi Delta)in the Lower Ozarks Section of the Ozark Natural Division. The pond is also surrounded by typical oak-hickory forest.
THE NARROWS AND BLUE SPRINGS: The Narrows has a footpath leading to Morgan Spring and Blue Spring and remnants of Tommason Mill, consisting of a dam and rockwork on Fredrick Creek. Blue Spring (viewed best at noon) is part of a karst complex known locally as "The Narrows" because of a ridge backbone just north of the spring, best described as "three-quarters of a lane wide." Within one square mile are four springs, with a combined daily flow of over 200 million gallons.
KELLY CAVE
WHITE'S CREEK CAVE
MARK TWAIN NATIONAL FOREST : 105,533 acres of public land and forest within Oregon County.