~Suggestions for Longview Park Trails~

1. Identify the Trees and Shrubs:

A system of well-defined walking trails has been developed for Longview Park. Trees and shrubs on both sides of the trail should be clearly labeled with both common and scientific names. Since there may be aesthetic objections to a forest of labels, numbers may be substituted for labels. An informational brochure that would identify the plant by its number could then be dispensed at some location in the park.

2. Identify the Rock beneath our feet:

The grand sweep of Town & Country prehistory lies recorded in the rock beneath our feet. At the surface, but mantled in most places with several feet of soil, are limestones of the Mississippian Period. They outcrop along Highway 40 and on Weidman Road between Clayton and Manchester Roads. These rocks were formed some 350 million years ago from deposits on the floor of a shallow sea that once covered the area we now call The City of Town & Country. Fossils found in these rocks are the remains of marine organisms that lived in these ancient seas.

Beneath the surface limestones lie more sedimentary rocks in layers of increasingly older age. At about 3000 feet a time-probing drill set up in Longview Park will encounter some of the oldest rock found in Missouri: Precambrian rhyolites formed about 1.5 billion years ago and granites dated at about 1.3 billion years. The rhyolites are evidence of a very violent time in Town & Country's prehistory. It was a time when active volcanoes dotted the landscape and lava flowed from great fissures in the earth.

Missouri rocks are not only important in understanding the past of our area, they are also of enormous economic value to us and to the entire state because they are the source of many ore minerals. Lead, copper, iron, zinc, barium and even small amounts of silver are found in association with our primary rocks.

Sedimentary rocks like limestone, sandstone and clay are equally important to our economy in the production of cement, aggregate, building stone and brick. The St. Peters sandstone, an extremely pure quartz sandstone, has been quarried for years by PPG near Pacific, Missouri for use in the manufacture of glass.

Because of their importance, it is suggested that examples of Missouri Rocks in the form of 200-pound boulders be distributed in chronological order along either side of the walking trail. They should be partly buried for a more natural appearance. The list of rocks could include: Granite. Rhyolite, Pegmatite, Basalt, Diorite, Gabbro, Fossliferous Limestone, Shale, Sandstone, Chert, Dolomite, Siltstone and Rhyolite Porphyry.

As with the plants, each rock should be marked with a number that relates to its identification, and other pertinent information compiled in a hand-out obtained somewhere in the Park.

3. A Giant Bird Bath and Feeder:

Because bird watching is so popular, it would be appropriate to erect somewhere in Longview Park a very large bird feeder - one capable of holding least 100 pounds of seed. The feeder and bath should be of unique and modern design. It might even attract national attention as a work of art. There seem to be many artists in Town & Country. They might enjoy designing such a bird feeder. Have a contest. Benches should be provided for those who wish to sit and observe the birds.

4. A Human Sun Dial:

This should be set up in an open area where sunlight is strong and not shaded by trees. A person standing on a designated spot lifts his arm above his head and reads the time from where the shadow hits the dial.

5. Identify and Label the Limestone in the retaining wall near the lake.

6. Mississippian Indian Village:

A temporary project lasting, perhaps, one summer, would enlist local students, scouting groups and others to construct a small Indian settlement consisting of a sweat house and a couple of dwellings. After preparing a small plot with oval chert or bone hoes, the student would plant crops like corn, squash and other foods grown by the Mississippian Indians. Nelson Reed, an Experimental Archeologist, might be persuaded to come out of retirement to supervise such a project. If he won't do it, try Jim and Carol Duncan: a husband and wife archeological team.

7. An Evening with the Cosmos:

The large open field at Longview Park is ideal for watching the stars with telescopes. With three moderately priced telescopes ($1500 each) you could schedule family nights for watching celestial objects. The schedule would have to be flexible because stars cannot be seen every night. Have the meetings conducted by a local Astronomical Society. It's my experience that members of such groups are so enthusiastic about their hobby; they might even provide the telescopes.

8. Music under the stars with a concert shell could also be considered.

~Longview Farm Park~
Interpretive Center

With some alterations it is possible to adapt one of the buildings in Longview Park for use as an Interpretive Center. The purpose of such a Center would be to interpret the History, Prehistory and Natural History of Town & Country through the display of dioramas, artifacts, photographs, mounted specimens, maps, models and descriptive text.

Natural History Exhibits

1. The Topography and Subsurface Geology of Town & Country:

This exhibit features a relief map of Town & Country with a simplified modern street grid superimposed. Two sides of the exhibit graphically display the rock formations that underlie Town & Country. The other two sides are fitted with Plexiglas covered drawers filled with labeled rocks representing the formations that lie below.

2. The importance of being a "Tree City":

This exhibit examines worldwide deforestation trends and points up our efforts to reverse this trend by planting and protecting our trees. We can illustrate this exhibit with a large world map that shows the forested areas of the world in 1600 AD. At the push of a button the map changes to show the extent of forests in 2000 AD. The difference is obvious. In contrast we can show an aerial photograph of Town & Country taken in the 1930's juxtaposed with one taken in 2000. This will graphically demonstrate our success in replanting treeless farmland and restoring the forest to Town & Country. This exhibit should also have a section on the value of trees: in retaining soil and water, in resisting stream, air and noise pollution and in providing shelter, food and nesting sites for birds, mammals and other critters with whom we share this earth.

Finally, this exhibit should devote space to how the visitor can contribute to reforestation in their community: give away seedlings on Arbor Day, discourage the removal of trees by developers and State agencies, and encourage back yard wildlife habitats.

3. Our Animal Neighbors:

A display of mounted specimens, casts and models of the common birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians in Town & Country with textual information about each.

4. Spiders and Insects and things that go squish under our feet:

This exhibit will include sections on harmful and beneficial insects and spiders and a section on survival methods employed by insects: camouflage, mimicry and surprise. Here we can use pinned specimens and Riker or bio-mounts. It is also be possible to set up a beehive under glass in the exhibit area. The bees enter the hive from the outside of the building through a tube.

5. The Forest Floor:

A diorama of a greatly magnified portion of the forest floor. It will show the enormous diversity of living things at this level of the forest: scavengers, predators, herbivores and decomposers - all are represented.

6. Stratification of Life in the Forest:

Animals, depending on their habits, restrict themselves to certain levels in the forest. This can be exhibited with graphics and mounted specimens.

7. Energy Cycle:

Animated with polarizing light and augmented with mounted specimens, this can make a colorful and interesting exhibit.

8. Reproduction of Plants and Animals:

Displays of different plant seeds, bird eggs, reptile eggs, amphibian eggs, etc.

9. Hazardous Plants:

Identification through color photographs, pressed leaves and models.

10. Commercial and Medical Value of Plants.

11. Additional Information on Subject:

Display of current books and pamphlets.

The Prehistory of Humans in the Town & Country Region

There is evidence that humans have been in our area for at least 12,000 years and perhaps longer. During that period of time, they evolved from nomadic hunters of Ice-Age mammals to hunter-gatherers, to farmers living in large communities like the one that existed at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site in Illinois.

For convenience, Archaeologists divide the prehistory of humans in North Americas into four cultural periods, each characterized by distinctive artifacts and traditions. Evidence of these periods in the form of chipped and ground stone artifacts, fragments of pottery and sometimes human bone can be found throughout Town & Country in freshly plowed or graded fields, spaded gardens and creek beds. An examination of these cultures beginning with the first arrivals in our area, The Paleo-Indians and ending with the advent of European explorers and written history follows.

The Paleo-Indians: 10, 000 BC to 8000 BC

The first Americans came from Asia. They were nomadic hunters who followed the movements of Ice-Age mammals across a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska at the height of the Wisconsin Glacial Stage. Exactly when they arrived is still disputed, but there is good evidence at kill sites in the West and at a kill site in Kimmswick, Missouri that humans were here 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

Exhibits:

1. A large map of Siberia and North America that shows the extent of glaciation, the land bridge and the route of humans into the heartland of North America.
2. A miniature diorama showing the killing of a mammoth mired in a streambed.
3. A display of Clovis, Eden and Folsom lance points.
4. A comparison of mammoth and mastodon teeth showing how their tooth structure reflects a different diet and life style.
5. Display of Ice-age mammal skulls, saber-toothed tiger, musk ox, cave bear, dire wolf, and giant sloth juxtaposed with artistic renderings of the animal in life (National Geographic).
6. Color transparencies of excavations at the Mastodon kill site at Kimmswick showing a Clovis spear point among the bones of a mastodon. Also display casts of the original points.

The Archaic Period: 8000 BC to 1000BC

For Indians in and around our area, the Archaic Period was a time of gradual but dramatic change. The period began about 8000 BC as the Ice Age was coming to a close. During the long, warming trend that followed, grasslands and tundra that had covered much of our region were replaced by pine forests, then by hardwood forests. By 5000 BC many of the Ice-Age mammals hunted by the Paleo-Indians were either extinct or had followed the retreating glaciers north into Canada.

With the herd animals gone, the Indians were forced to seek other kinds of food. They directed their energies toward a more intensive exploitation of local food resources. Increasing emphasis was placed on the gathering of wild edible plants, fishing and the collection of freshwater mussels. Hunting remained an important activity, but now the quarries were deer, wild turkey, migratory fowl and small woodland animals.

To efficiently exploit the diverse resources of their woodland environment, the Archaic Indians developed a variety of specialized tools and weapons. The expansion of the basic tool kit, together with technological innovations, is one of the hallmarks of the Archaic Period.

Exhibits:

1. Back-lit graphic showing the seasonal rounds of the Archaic Indians
2. Display of Archaic artifacts showing the variety of tools: mullers, mortar and pestles, atl-atl weights, grooved axes, chisels, plummets, knives and spear points
3. Photographs of archeological work at Hidden Valley and at Graham - cave
4. A display of plant foods gathered by Archaic Indians: Prairie turnip, Arrowhead "Man of the Earth" or Wild Morning Glory, Walnut, Hickory Nut, Acorns, American Lotus, and cattail. (Imported plants from Central America: Corn, Common Bean, Pumpkin, Squash, Gourd. First cultivated native plants: Sunflower, Goosefoot or lambs Quarters and Marsh Elder seeds.)

Woodland Indians 1000 BC to 1500 AD

The Woodland cultural tradition appeared in the eastern United States about 3000 years ago. Its earliest and most intensive expression was in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, but by the first century AD it had spread throughout the East and were almost certainly in Town & Country replacing the older archaic way of life.

In general terms the Woodland tradition was characterized by burial mounds, sometimes in the shape of animals, by cord and fabric marked pottery and by the beginning of plant cultivation. There was also a trend to larger and more settled communities and a general increase in population.

Exhibits:

1. Model of an Adena house and log-lined burial
2. Innovative Woodland artifacts: The ungrooved ax or Celt, the Bow and arrow and pottery
3. Exquisitely crafted Hopewell grave offerings, effigy pipes, copper plates, hands carved in mica and spear points flaked from obsidian
4. Back-lit aerial view of the Serpent Mound and photos of other Hopewell earthworks
5. Photos and artifacts from the St. Charles excavations
6. A diorama of a Hopewell trading party at a village on the Illinois River
7. Video of man flaking an obsidian spear point (University of Idaho)

The Mississippian Indians: 800 AD to 1500 AD

Around 800 AD a vigorous and progressive Indian culture appeared and flourished along the rich bottomlands of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The Mississippian Indians, as these people are called, built flat-topped earthen mounds as bases for important buildings and clustered the mounds around open plazas. For their subsistence, they depended heavily on farming. More important, they attained a high degree of social organization and gathered in large communities like the one that once existed at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site.

From the great metropolitan center at Cahokia Mounds, satellite villages spread both to the north and south along the Mississippi River and in the area that is now downtown St. Louis where there once existed a large community consisting of more than two dozen mounds.

In 1961 Dale Henning and a crew of students excavated a village site at the Burt and Denke development, River Bend Estates. After examination of the house plans and artifacts, notably the pottery, Dale concluded that the village was temporally and culturally connected to the Cahokia settlement and was probably another satellite village. Since Henning's excavations, Mississippian stone box graves have been found near the intersection of Highway 40 and Woods Mill Road and burial mounds have been mapped near Wild Horse Creek Road.

Exhibits:

1. Reconstruct in miniature the village excavated by Dale Henning. Also display of artifacts found at the village site.
2. Also in miniature models that illustrate the plotting of quadrants and the steps taken to excavate and map a site.
3. Large color transparency of artist reconstruction of the Indian metropolis at Cahokia Mounds. (National Geographic).
4. Display of Mississippian tools, arrowheads and pottery and decorative objects. Emphasis on agricultural tools
5. The location of mounds in downtown St. Louis super imposed on modern street grid.

History of Town & Country

This exhibit could consist of photographs, letters, news articles, diaries, old maps, audio histories, and artifacts. There are within the boundaries of our city many old homes, cabins and traces of habitations - some no more than foundations. There are also cemeteries. Some are associated with churches and are large and well-documented. Others are small family plots on properties that have been sold and subdivided and the plots lost. The monster of progress has already chewed up a lot of our history, but the information about the lost burial plots and the cabin that is no more than a memory may not be lost. There are county records, church registries and old Geological Survey maps that often record buildings and cemeteries that are gone today and no longer shown on recent maps.

This exhibit can be an open-ended, on-going research project to reconstruct our history.

Before Humans The Earliest Prehistory of Town & Country

The earliest records of Town & Country are recorded in the rock beneath our feet and stacked like pages in a book 3000 feet thick. At the top of the stack are the most recent rocks, formed from deposits on a shallow sea floor a mere 350 million years ago. At the bottom of the stack at a depth of about 3000 feet are Precambrian Rhyolites formed 1.5 Billion years ago. We will begin our story with the oldest rock found in Missouri.

The Precambrian of Town & Country

This was a violent time in our Prehistory. Active volcanoes and fissure flows were exploding molten rock and ash onto the surface of the earth in our region. When the lava cooled and hardened, it formed the great masses of Rhyolite encounter about 3000 feet beneath us at Longview Park.

Suggested Exhibits

1. Diorama of a tortured landscape.

A view of Town & Country as it might have appeared 1.5 Billion years ago. In the background may be a range of volcanoes. One is exploding pyroclastics into the air. In the foreground is large fissure in the earth from which flows glowing molten lava. All else is barren and waste.

2. Examples of Rhyolite and Rhyolite Porphyry.

Also displayed are examples of Tuff formed from volcanic ash. Granite could also be displayed as an example of the material that was later intruded into the overlying rhyolite

The Mississippian Period

The Gulf Embayment covered our area with a shallow sea several times during this Period and during the Period that followed. Each time as the seas receded, thick deposits of sedimentary rock containing fossil remains of marine life that lived in those seas was left behind.

Suggested Exhibits

1. Diorama of underwater life in the Mississippian Period
2. Large collection of Mississippian Fossils
3. Photographs of Town & Country outcrops of Mississippian formations