Boonville/Franklin

The boy whose father kept the Franklin tavern became the painter of this river. George Caleb Bingham, born in Virginia in 1811, came to Franklin at eight in 1819. His father, a county judge, died of malaria in 1823 and debts took the family home, and at sixteen George was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker in Boonville, across the water. He went on to paint Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, about 1845, and The County Election in 1852, served as state treasurer in the Civil War, and died in Kansas City in 1879.

What the plaque says

Boonville/Franklin Boonville, early prosperous river town, was first settled, 1810, by Hannah Cole, a widow, and her 9 children. A neighborhood fort was built at her place in the War of 1812. In 1817 the town, named for Daniel Boone, was laid out and became the seat of newly organized Cooper County, named for Sarshall Cooper, pioneer. Here was the first State fair in Missouri, 1853. On June 17, 1861, here, in the first engagement of the Civil War in Missouri, Federals under Lyon defeated State Guard under Marmaduke. Thespian Hall (now Lyric), oldest theater in use west of the Alleghenies, was built, 1855-57. Kemper Military School opened as a boarding school, 1844; and the Episcopal church was built, 1846. In 1889 the Missouri Training School for boys was opened. Here lived David Barton, U.S. Senator, 1821-1831; Lon V. Stephens, governor, 1897-1901; and the journalist and educator, Walter Williams. Here, where Hannah Cole once operated a ferry, 2 bridges cross the river. On the north bank was "Old" Franklin, Boon's Lick Trail end and start of Santa Fe Trail. (See other Side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1999 Franklin/Boonville Franklin, founded across the river from Boonville, 1816, was once the metropolis of the Boon's Lick Country, a central Missouri region taking its name from a salt lick in the area worked by the sons of Daniel Boone. Here was the first land office north of the Missouri River, 1818, and the first newspaper, 1819, the "Missouri Intelligencer and Boon's Lick Advertiser." First steamboat up the Missouri, the "Independence," docked, 1819. From 1817-28 Franklin served as seat of Howard Co. En- croachment of the river brought town abandonment beginning with the laying out of New Franklin, 1828. From Franklin, William Becknell, "Father of the Santa Fe Trail," led, 1821, the first suc- cessful trading expedition to Santa Fe and took the first wagons over the route, 1822. Jacks and jennets brought back were the founding stock of Missouri's mules. John Miller, governor, 1826-32, lived here, and here Kit Carson was apprenticed to a saddler and George Caleb Bingham's father ran a hotel. In the vicinity are sites of family forts of the War of 1812. (See other Side)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Boone's Lick State Historic Site — 9.2 mi
  The salt spring in the Howard County woods that Daniel Boone's sons worked from 1805, whose name spread to a road, a country and the first American settlement of central Missouri.
• Katy Trail State Park — 11 mi
  Two hundred forty miles of the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas rail bed between Machens and Clinton, mostly along the Missouri River, first opened in 1990 at Rocheport, where it runs through the railroad's stone tunnel.
• Arrow Rock State Historic Site — 12 mi
  A Boonslick river town of more than 1,000 that the river and railroads left behind, built and worked by enslaved people, now a village of fifty and a National Historic Landmark.
• Rock Bridge Memorial State Park — 24 mi
  Karst on the edge of Columbia: a boardwalk through a natural rock tunnel to the Devil's Icebox sinkholes, over a cave that is the only known home of the pink planarian.

More markers nearby

• Boonville — 2.9 mi
• Arrow Rock — 12 mi
• Fayette — 12 mi
• Glasgow — 17 mi