A bend in the river

The Missouri River flows below Weston Bend.

WESTON, Mo. – ‘Tis the land of vices, these hills. 

Thick forests of oak and hickory take turns with crop rows along Missouri Highway 273 … forest, then field, forest and field … again and again, trailing down to this historic town and the banks of the Missouri River. 

Above the town sits the McCormick Distilling Co., founded in 1856 by Ben Holladay, who eventually moved from hooch to horses when he plotted the Pony Express route from nearby St. Joseph to San Francisco. McCormick is, claims the company, the oldest operating distillery in the world.

Today, McCormick’s plant has shunned making its famed whiskey here – it imports it instead – in favor of vodka and rum.  It pumps out plenty of both.

1853 Weston ... engraving by Hermann Meyer.

At the foot of town sit tobacco barns, year-round testament to when Weston was the port and hub of Midwestern tobacco and hemp production.  Today, Platte County still turns out millions of pounds of tobacco each year despite tobacco’s stigma.

But I’m in Weston for its virtue, not its vices.  And that can be found high above the river, within Weston Bend State Park.

I’m not a stranger here.  The family would, on occasion, hike the park’s paved path with dogs leading the way.  We once attempted to bike it, but the trail hugs the roller-coaster hills so tightly – sharply dipping, climbing – that it bested both our brakes and our spirits. 

Weston Bend path.

It’s far better on foot.  And following three days of business in Kansas City, I was ready.

Walking these grounds is to walk history.  The Kansa, Sac, Iowa and Fox tribes all wandered these woods; Lewis and Clark, in their chronicles, wrote of fur traders below its bluffs; a French Canadian named Pensineau operated a trading post and tavern within its boundaries.  A creek carrying the Pensineau name still flows through the park.

On this day, there was nary a hint of spring.  Tree buds were microscopic amid the shriveled, brown leaves still clinging to branches.  Tufts of grass bordered the path, but they were small and a dull green. 

I did see one patch of plants emerging, each thick sprig opening like a droopy umbrella.  I don’t know the plant’s species, but I suspect these four guys owe their early start to their location along the dirt trail that snakes atop the river bluff.  With only river on the west, not trees, the sun has warmed the ground sooner. 

Hello, spring.

It’s here from this outlook, though, that you can view the park’s ultimate prize.  Hundreds of feet below flow the waters of the Missouri – a magnificent site all its own. But gaze straight out and you see west … and the vast flatlands of The West. 

Look slightly southwest and there’s Fort Leavenworth, Mo., home of the Buffalo Soldiers, guardians of the Santa Fe Trail.  It was also the site of George Custer’s court martial for undisciplined conduct ... a predictor, some contend, of Custer's rashness and the later Little Big Horn travesty. 

Look slightly northwest and there’s Atchison, Kan., also a river town and the site of the eastern terminus of the famed Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad.

Look straight west and you face Manhattan, Kan., where son Zach and Kansas State University reside, and nearby Fort Riley, home of the U.S. Cavalry. Both city and fort float atop the beautiful Kansas Flint Hills. 

Custer was stationed at Fort Riley; ironically, the only official survivor at Little Big Horn among Custer’s ill-fated column was the horse Commanche. The horse became Fort Riley’s regimental hero and mascot and, reportedly, a lover of beer until his death.  He was then shipped to the University of Kansas, properly stuffed, and stands now, forever, in its natural history museum.

Commanche

The people and energy that gave rise to Fort Leavenworth, Atchison, Manhattan and Fort Riley funneled through Weston, then the farthest “West Town” in the United States and the primary river crossing for the great move West.  By 1850, more than 260 steamboats a year stopped at its port. 

A flood in 1881 changed all that almost overnight, moving the channel a bit west, only to snake back east to its original course below the eventual Weston Bend State Park. The town slowed to its sleepy state today.

So, how quiet it is.  Still.   

But one can imagine the noises then … the shrill whistles of steamboats, the creaks and squeaks of wagon trains, the crack of whips above snorting oxen teams, the whinnied protests of horses made anxious by fast water.

And, at night, bar-room music tumbling onto Main Street.  Inside … a thick, potent tangle of whiskey and smoke.