Van Buren

Van Buren began on the river and still lives by it. Founded in 1833 as Ripley County's seat, it lost that role to Doniphan in 1847 and declined until Carter County took it up. A suspension bridge crossed the Current here in 1893-94, and from 1907 a motorboat service carried passengers between Van Buren and Doniphan. In 1964 Congress created the Ozark National Scenic Riverways to protect the Current and the Jacks Fork, some 80,000 acres holding the country's largest concentration of first-magnitude springs, Big Spring among them; the park was dedicated in 1971.

What the plaque says

Van Buren Van Buren, settled as the seat of Ripley County, organized, 1833, became the seat of Carter County when it was organized from parts of Ripley and Shannon counties, 1859. Nearby Big Spring State Park, 4582 acres of Ozark grandeur, founded, 1924, features the natural beauty of the largest single- orifice, fresh water spring in the U. S. Big Spring has a maximum flow of 840 million gallons every 24 hours and a daily average of 250 million gallons. The spring discharges about 175 tons of limestone in solution daily. 433 feet above sea level, at the base of a 500-foot cliff, the spring gushes through an impeded opening from an underground streambed and flows 1,000 feet to Current River, famed spring-formed, spring-fed Ozark fishing stream. Of the 69 springs in the U. S. having a daily flow of 64,600,000 gallons or more, 11 are in the Missouri Ozarks. During the Civil War the Union Army of Southeast Missouri wintered in the area, 1862-63. The Snider House, west of town, is the site of one of several skirmishes. (See other side) Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1955 Van Buren (Continued from other side) Carter County, whose main industries are lumbering and recreation, is almost evenly divided by Current River. Called La Rivière Courante by early French trappers, it has long been a highway and food source for the area. Early Indians found it attractive, for 36 villages and camps have been found in the area. Thousands of logs came down the river to nearby Chicopee in the 1890's and early 1900's, during the lumbering boom. The town of Grandin, to the south, one- time lumbering center of Missouri, was laid out in 1888 by the Missouri Lumber and Mining Co. Over 100,000 acres of Carter County's virgin forest land were bought and 15 to 20 thousand acres were harvested a year. From the mid-1890's to 1909 when the forest was depleted and the mills closed, production at Grandin's mills exceeded 60 million board feet of lumber a year. With the sawmills closed, Grandin and other mill towns in the area became like ghost towns. The natural forest resource of the area is being restored through local, state, and national effort. Much of Carter County lies in Clark National Forest, founded, 1933-37.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Big Spring (Ozark National Scenic Riverways) — 3.2 mi
  A spring at the foot of a dolomite bluff south of Van Buren averaging about 289 million gallons a day into the Current River, dissolving out a cave as it flows, beside a CCC lodge.
• Alley Spring and Mill (Ozark National Scenic Riverways) — 26 mi
  The red 1893-94 roller mill on the Alley Spring branch west of Eminence, built to make wheat flour in corn country and turned by a turbine fed by the spring rather than the river.

More markers nearby

• Reynolds County — 20 mi
• Eminence — 22 mi
• Oregon County — 30 mi