Fort Davidson

Thomas Ewing Jr., who held Fort Davidson, was a Kansas judge before he was a general. Born in Lancaster, Ohio, on August 7, 1829, son of the Whig lawyer and politician Thomas Ewing and brother-in-law of William T. Sherman, he was elected the first chief justice of Kansas in 1861 and resigned in 1862 to join the army. After Quantrill's raid on Lawrence in 1863 he issued General Order No. 11. Brevetted major general in 1866, he represented Ohio in Congress from 1877 to 1881, narrowly lost the 1879 governor's race, and died in New York City in 1896.

What the plaque says

Fort Davidson Surrounded by the rugged splendor of the highest peaks of the Missouri Ozarks, Arcadia Valley lies in the geologic center of the Ozarks, one of the world's oldest mountain regions. The valley towns are in an area settled in the iron mining boom of the 1840's-50's, when Pilot Knob here and Iron Mountain in nearby St. Francois County were thought to be of solid iron. During the Civil War, the area was early occupied by Union forces to protect the Iron Mountain Railroad, completed between here and St. Louis, 1858. General U.S. Grant's first command post after his commission as a general was here, Aug. 8-18, 1861. Fort Davidson, the earthen redoubt here, was defended by over 1,000 Federals under General Thomas Ewing against some 12,000 Confederates under General Sterling Price, Sept. 27, 1864. As a result of the engagement here at Pilot Knob, Price lost over 1,200 men to Ewing's some 200, and was halted in his drive to St. Louis. The fort, built 1863, named for Gen. J.W. Davidson, is owned by Clark National Forest and is maintained by the U. S. Forest Service. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1953 Fort Davidson (Continued from other side) Ironton was laid out as the seat of Iron County, 1857, and the courthouse was built, 1858-60. The first settler in the valley was Ephraim Stout about 1807, and Missouri's first working iron furnace, Ashebran's, was built on Stout's Creek about 1815. The town of Arcadia was laid out and the Methodist Episcopal Arcadia High School opened, 1849. Later sold, it reopened as today's Ursuline Academy, 1877. The Home for Aged Baptists was built, 1923. On Fort Hill was Civil War Fort Hovey, also called Curtis. Before the Iron Mountain R. R. reached here, 1858, and the town of Pilot Knob was founded, iron ore was hauled over the 1843 Ste. Genevieve, Iron Mountain, Pilot Knob Plank Road. Graniteville was founded when the first large quarry opened, 1869. Here are Taum Sauk, 1,772 feet, highest peak in Missouri; Evangeline Falls; shut-ins on Stout's Creek; Lake Killarney; Tip Top Mountain, 1,500 feet; Royal Gorge; "Elephant Rocks"; and other sites. The name Ozarks is from the French abbreviation, Aux Arcs, for Aux Arkansas, meaning on the river, at the post, or in the country of the Arkansas. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1953

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Battle of Pilot Knob State Historic Site (Fort Davidson) — steps away
  The hexagonal earthwork in the Arcadia Valley where some 1,500 Union defenders broke Sterling Price's assault in September 1864, then slipped out at night and blew the magazine behind them.
• Elephant Rocks State Park — 3.5 mi
  A train of rounded granite boulders 1.5 billion years old near Graniteville, weathered in place into a tor, beside the quarry that faced the Eads Bridge piers and paved the St. Louis levee.
• Taum Sauk Mountain State Park — 5.9 mi
  Missouri's highest point at 1,772 feet, an easy walk from the lot, and a rugged loop to the state's tallest waterfall in the worn roots of 1.5-billion-year-old volcanoes.
• Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park — 12 mi
  The East Fork of the Black River squeezed through chutes and potholes in ancient rhyolite, and a valley rebuilt after a mountaintop reservoir gave way before dawn on December 14, 2005.

More markers nearby

• Fredericktown — 19 mi
• Bonne Terre — 21 mi
• Potosi — 23 mi
• Reynolds County — 29 mi