The Many Adventures of Flat Stanley in Arkansas and Missouri

It’s been forever since I’ve done a post on here, but I had a visitor and I was busy showing him around parts of Arkansas and Missouri for the last few weeks.

Flat Stanley came to visit me all the way from Michigan. Apparently a bulletin board fell on him and squashed him and now he travels around the world in envelopes seeing the sites and reporting back to his friends. This time around Stanley was quite busy. He visited a goat dairy in Arkansas, the Lewis and Clark State Office Building, which houses the Department of Natural Resources and Department of Public Safety, the State Capitol and other sites around Jefferson City, Missouri. Stanley also was able to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Homestead in Mansfield, Missouri.

My cousins, Scott and Tessa McCormick, own and run the White River Creamery, located in Elkins, Arkansas. Stanley was able to make a quick trip down to the creamery to see how goats are milked and cheese is made.

First the does were being milked by Emily. She hooked them up to a machine, which pumps the milk out of the udders. The goats don’t mind being milked as they get an extra special treat, grain, which they love, with each milking.

After the milking was finished, Stanley visited the cheese room, where Scott McCormick makes all of his cheese.

Stanley also found out goats like to eat everything, and he almost lost his arm to one of the does in the dairy, who was waiting for her turn to be milked. Fortunately he was able to be rescued just in the nick of time. Phew!

Spring at the dairy is kidding season, which means lots of baby goats, who are known as kids. The McCormick’s were able to come up with a way to feed 12 kids at a time and Stanley helped supervise the kids feeding time, making sure there weren’t any fights breaking out and that everyone got a fair share of the milk.

While visiting the creamery, one of the does had two babies, a boy and a girl. Stanley was able to help clean up one of the kids.

Stanley also accompanied me to work, as he was anxious to find out more about the Department of Natural Resources. The building is located right next to the Missouri River and has a natural prairie all around it. This is where Stanley first met his new friends, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. 

Lewis and Clark set out on an expedition in 1804 near what is now St. Louis, Missouri to find a route through the western portion of the United States. Sacajawea also assisted Lewis and Clark. She was a Shoshone Native American who was able to communicate with the Natives encountered on the trail.

After meeting with Lewis and Clark, Stanley decided to explore the Governor’s Gardens and Mansion.

After seeing the gardens, Stanley hopped on over to visit Lohman’s Landing, a local mercantile, established in 1839, mainly used during the steamboat era. It is also the oldest building in Jefferson City, Missouri.

The train station is located next to Lohman’s Landing, with the trains running along the edge of the bluffs, overlooking the Missouri River.

After visiting Lohman’s Landing and the train station, Stanley decided to explore the Capitol a bit. The Capitol was completed in 1917. The capitol is topped by a bronze statue of Ceres the Roman goddess of agriculture. 

Stanley also ran into some Union Soldiers camping out near the Capitol building, who served during the Civil War. Missouri was quite divided between the North and the South. The Governor, Claiborne F. Jackson, while in Southern Missouri, ordered a Secession from the Union and Missouri was elected as the 12th Confederate State. Meanwhile in Jefferson City, the pro-Union legislators declared the state’s loyalty to the Union, resulting in two state governments and Missouri was represented in both the U.S. Congress and the Confederate Congress.

Stanley also ran into President Harry S. Truman. He was the 33rd president of the Unites States from 1945 – 1953, and was born on a farm in Missouri, his parents eventually relocated to Independence, Missouri, where he grew up and graduated from high school.

Mr. Walt Disney was also found lounging around in the capitol. Mr. Disney is best known for creating Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Donald Duck and many other Disney characters. He also created the Disney theme parks. Walt Disney moved to Marceline, Missouri when he was four and grew up on a farm there.

Mark Twain was found relaxing in the corner, smoking a cigar. He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri.  He wrote “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and is known as one of the greatest American Novelists. Although he seems to be breaking the no smoking rule in the capitol.

Laura Ingalls Wilder also happened to be at the capitol. She wrote her Little House Books at Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri. Her daughter Rose Wilder Lane was also an accomplished author. Stanley had the opportunity while visiting to see her farm in person. Her stone house had electricity years before any of the other houses in the area. The stone from the house was taken from the area where the house was built.

Missouri and Arkansas have lots more sights to see, but Stanley is anxious to return to Michigan to share all of his adventures with his friends. Sadly he will be leaving shortly for the trip back to Michigan.

Marceline, Missouri – The Boyhood Home of Walt Disney

One of the first engineering reports I reviewed for my work, which was almost seven years ago, mentioned that Marceline was where Walt Disney grew up and that they had a museum and a few other sites to see that talked about his life growing up there.  I told my sister about it and we had always planned to visit it.

This past spring my sister came down from Michigan with three of her boys to visit me here in Missouri.  Adam, who is fifteen, absolutely loves Walt Disney.  So we decided to drive up there and check it out, as we are always looking for new things to see and do in Missouri and we figured that he would enjoy seeing where his idol grew up.

The museum was great.  It was in an old train depot that was remodeled into what it looked like when Walt Disney arrived when he was a boy.  The trains still pass by the building, but they no longer stop.  The museum talked about the town and talked about Walt Disney’s life growing up, explained about his dreaming tree, had a model setup of Disney Land and even had a desk that he had carved his initials in while a student there.  They also had a small gift shop with different Disney items.

You could also go see Walt Disney’s dreaming tree, on his old homestead, which is where he sat and dreamed up ideas.  Sadly the tree was struck by lightning, but as you can see parts of it are still there.

There is also an old wooden barn setup on the property that you can go see.  All in all if you want to learn about Walt Disney and his influence on Marceline I definitely recommend visiting.