Maramec Spring Park and the Maramec Iron Works

Maramec Spring is private land open to the public because of one woman's plans. The fifth-largest spring in Missouri, averaging about 153 cubic feet a second, close to 100 million gallons a day, it flows to the Meramec River near St. James, and it was named a National Natural Landmark in October 1971.

In 1826 settlers came to the spring to start what became the first successful ironworks west of the Mississippi. The Maramec Iron Works used the spring's flow to power its machinery and smelted high-grade hematite dug from a pit nearby. It made iron from 1826 to 1876, and during the Civil War it supplied iron for cannonballs and for the gunboats James B. Eads built at St. Louis. The company went bankrupt, and the ruins of the works still stand by the spring branch. The district was listed on the National Register in 1969.

Lucy Wortham James, granddaughter of William James, who developed the works, spent childhood summers here with her grandmother. With an inheritance from Dun and Bradstreet shares, she bought more than 1,300 acres in Phelps and Crawford counties, including the spring and the ironworks site, and turned away proposals to run a state highway and a power line through it. She died in 1938, and the James Foundation she funded opened the park in 1965. A museum explains the spring and the ironworks, a drive passes the old iron pit, and the Missouri Department of Conservation runs a trout hatchery at the spring.