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Pilot Knob Mountain

Pilot Knob Mountain September 9, 2014 & Old Photos

We climbed Pilot Knob Mountain in 2014. I found some videos in my stash and combined them with photos of the trip, as well as some old photos I found. I know I have more photos than these and I hope to put a good collection of them onto a website page of their own some day.

1959 Pilot Knob Mount and Elephant Rock

This 1959 video includes Elephant Rock State Park. This video is special to me as it has my parents together before they were married. You will spot them sitting together on top of the mountain. Grandpa took videos as they walked up the mountain. I have converted them to digital format and uploaded them to Youtube to share with everyone as a tool to bring back those awesome memories.

1962 Pilot Knob Mountain

This video was taken in 1962.

1965 Pilot Knob Mountain and Fort Davidson

This video was taken in 1965 and included Fort Davidson.

See Pilot Knob Reenactment which has its own page.

Every time I visit Pilot Knob, Missouri, I overhear people talking about climbing Pilot Knob Mountain. It was something my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and family did and I SO want to climb the mountain! I finally took that "heritage hike" up Pilot Knob Mountain and knotched off a bucket list to-do.

This is a photo from below the mountain from Fort Davidson. You can see the top of the mountain where one stands on the rocks.

This image is taken from the top of Pilot Mountain and marks where the Fort Davidson, the conservation building, and Granny's house are located.

This is a panorma view from on top of the mountain on September 21, 2014.

It is my understanding, the mountain now has, or in the past has had, three owners. The federal government owns the top of the mountain and has closed it off due to two reasons: safety as some have been hurt and to protect the rare bats. The Missouri Conservation owns the bottom part of the mountain and somewhere in between is a private owner. It is my understanding that the the public entities are working together to get the mountain reopened, but that the private owner would not cooperate. They continue to work hard towards making this great, historic, place available to all.  Pilot Knob National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1987. In 2014, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began offering hikes up the mountain scheduled a few times a year. To make the hike, you have to sign up. The National Wildlife Refuge System is managed by the federal entity. The refuge is managed by the staff at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge.  For more information about the refuge, contact 573-222-3589 or email the refuge at mingo@fws.gov. Visit the refuge’s website at www.fws.gov/refuge/pilot_knob.

Here are some of the photos that are in the above video. I wanted to add more here for you to enjoy.

I believe these panoramas of many photos are much better in the larger size zooming around as you can really see the details, but for internet purposes, small files are not as effective.

Rather than putting these into a pano, I left them so you can see the details. This one is of Fort Davidson and Pilot Knob town next to it. The following photos are in order from right to left.

Granny (Lucille Jane Schnell, nee Wright, nee Treadway)

Granny (Great-grandma) loved the Ironton area of Missouri.  Her last house was directly across from where the current Fort Davidson is located.  She had to live in St. Louis for a while in her old age with her daughter (my Grandma) and son-in-law (my Grandpa), but yearned to go back and in the last year or so lived in the Baptist home there in Ironton where she died and is buried. Granny was born to Gilbert Lulden Schnell (Shnell) Jr. and Rubein Jenevery "Ginevie" "Jenny" "Gennie" Douglas. Jenny was born to Margaret Denice Harbison and William Bevin Douglas all with heritage to Iron County.

Every time I visit Pilot Knob/Ironton I can feel that same love in my heart for the area.  There is just something about driving through a valley with peaks of mountains on either side of you that stirs the soul.  Granny's parent's home was located just a little further up the road at Caledonia.

This is a photo of Granny's home at 211 Ziegler Street, Pilot Knob. I remember in about 2000 I had asked my Grandpa for directions and he gave me directions from the good old days, but the streets have changed since then! With this photo in hand, my husband and I drove around every street in Pilot Knob looking for the house and were about to give up when we turned the corner and I spotted it. It was the area at the top of the triangle that gave it away. We stopped and talked to the man next door and he confirmed it was Granny's house.

This is my Granny's home. I had been on some genealogy hunts to distant towns to see where my heritage was from. I remember I had found this house the year before this photo for the first time. I remember being in the house one time as a little girl, but only remember being told to sit on a bench and wait and not to move and be good.

The folks in town had told me that this house was built before the Civil War and that it had bullet holes in the walls from the local famous Battle of Pilot Knob (or here). It sits across the street from the fort where the battle occurred. My Granny did not live in it during the Civil War, but did live in it for a long period of time in the 1900's.

This is my Dad in the photo in 2001 and he remembered much more about the house, especially all the work building onto it with his own hands.

This was the last time we saw the house as they condemned it and took it down shortly after this photo. I thought it was very sad that a historic house, one of the few that old in town, would be allowed to get in this condition, rather than preserving it. It makes me sad that a part of my family history is gone now. It makes me sad that Granny is gone and that I did not talk to her more as a teenager to learn more about her family who was partly Indian/span>. It makes me sad that Dad is gone. Cancer is such an ugly thing.

In 2014, this is what remains of the house. This was the addition that was added to the back of the house which Granny used as her kitchen. The door is to the right in this photo. She would have had to have gone outside from the main house to go in the kitchen. The awning and roof are fairly new in this photo. The kind neighbor next door owns the property and he remembers Granny very well. I am thankful to him for taking care of her property and allowing us to hang out there whenever we visit. He even remembers me well calling me "Mrs. Treadway's Granddaughter."

In 2014, this is the view of the back of the kitchen.

This photo was taken in 2014. It is the barn that is still at the end of the back yard. I always peek inside.

These are some images of Granny's gravesite at the Missouri Baptist Home in Ironton.