Historical Society Meets

The Macon County Historical Society met November 2 for their quarterly meeting at the Apple Basket recently with Elaine Justin, Community Relations Manager with MoDOT as guest speaker. She began with the Three Notch Road (notches on trees) in 1735 and brought the highway system up to date. She told of the Kings’s Highway of 1808 and the first highways being constructed for travel of nine miles per hour. The roads were paid for by individuals with the government saying roads were not their responsibility, then in 1913 the State highway Department was created by the legislature. The Model T Ford can be given credit for the highway system because they were unable to travel on mud roads. She showed a slide projection showing the Pike’s Peak ocean to ocean road across Missouri going through Macon, Bevier, Callao and New Cambria. Hwy 36 as a general rule follows the original highway. The name of the Missouri State Department of Transportation has been changed to MoDOT. Plans are being made to have a four lane highway across the state.

After the program President Morgenweck conducted a short business meeting with the reading of the minutes of the last meeting and Treasurer’s report. He then reported on the appointment of a Building Committee consisting of Jack Lee, Sally Watts, Susy Leath, Mark White and Merlyn Amidei to check out a site for a museum. Mark White reported they had looked at a number of downtown buildings as well as, the Annex to the Blees Building but no decision had been made.

The meeting moved at 8 pm to 504 Broadway where the business meeting was continued.

Doug Anspaugh, Manhattan, Kansas had contacted members of the Historical Society indicating that he was interested in a log cabin located in Callao which had been constructed by his great grandfather Anspaugh near Hart. He plans to purchase the cabin and donate it to a historical group. Plans were made to keep in touch with him.

The group voted to donate $100 to the Green Theatre Project in LaPlata and a check was mailed.

The meeting adjourned with the next meeting to be held at the Macon Public Library on 1 February 2007 at 1:30 pm.