August 8, 2009

El Camino Real thru McMullin, MO


This is a photo of a map in the St. Louis Library. Another of the same hangs in the Sikeston Museum. This map shows Highway 61 from Kluge's Hill to south of Sikeston. Highway 61 is shown in red and the previously used road, or El Camino Real, "The King's Highway," in black. At Kluge's Hill the old road turned left to the Walton Home and then passed along the western edge of a Spanish Grant (now the Grant Farm). At the end of that road, it made a jog and then turned in front of the Patterson Home (Highway 61 split the Patterson Farm) and crossed what is now Highway 61 at the Wagley Store. It continued along the edge of the Ed Cline Farm (now Grant City Drive) and passed the old Methodist Church building and the Pratt residence. It continued across the road where it passed the POW camp and then on thru another Spanish Grant (part of the McMullin Estate) in front of where the Butrum's and Grant's lived. They changed the road so it would pass in the back of their homes as Highway 61 was to their east. From there, El Camino Real made an arc to just beyond the Sawmill Road where it went by a house (in the middle of a field--another Spanish Land Grant-- and then on to where Highway 61 met up with it on into Sikeston. It did not go straight thru Sikeston crossing one city block at a diagonal.

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