MoreNathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone, was not only one the Ozarks earliest settlers, he was an land surveyor.
The year was 1837.
The United States was just a fledgling nation, most of its area unsettled frontier. Artist George Catlin was painting his timeless images of Northern Plains Indians, a smallpox epidemic killed 1,800 Mandans in villages on the upper Missouri, as well as many Arikara and Hidastas. Texas just a year earlier had won its independence from Mexico.
Viewed over the split rail garden fence, the Nathan Boone cabin today looks much as it did in the mid-1800s. Among the more recent acquisitions of Missouri State Parks, the 1837 cabin is being restored as nearly as possible to its condition when occupied by the Boone family.
East of the Mississippi John Deere introduced his sod-busting steel plow, James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickock was born, and much of the nation was enduring economic recession.
Far from the population centers of the 16-year-old state of Missouri, in a stand of virgin ash and other Ozarks hardwoods in northwest Greene County, a seasoned frontier trapper, hunter, surveyor and soldier with a famous name began carving out a new home for his family.
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