Remembering Our Roots

University of Missouri

Columbia, MO | 573-882-2121 | www.missouri.edu

Founded in 1839, the University of Missouri was the first state university west of the Mississippi River.

Other firsts for the university include the world’s first School of Journalism, founded in 1908; Missouri’s first College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1946; the first engineering program west of the Mississippi, founded in 1849, and the nation’s first College of Education at a public university, founded in 1868.

Also known as MU and Mizzou, the school is a major land-grant institution and is the state’s largest public research university, conducting millions of dollars in federal research each year. It is one of only 34 public universities (and the only in Missouri) selected for membership in the Association of American Universities. Mizzou offers more than 300 degree programs and is among only five institutions in the country with law, medicine, veterinary medicine and a nuclear research center — the most powerful university research reactor in the country — on one campus. The campus itself is designated a botanic garden, with more than 42,000 plants and trees, and serves as an outdoor laboratory for 10 academic programs. MU also operates a Museum of Art and Archaeology and Museum of Anthropology, both of which are open to the public.

The university has been nationally recognized by the National Science Foundation as one of the top 10 universities in the country for undergraduate research opportunities. Other accolades include being designated “Research University/ Very High” and “Community Engaged” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; accreditation through the Higher Learning Commission; named a veteran-friendly school by G.I. Jobs, U.S. News and World Report and other national media; the university, the Trulaske College of Business and the College of Education’s graduate program are all listed in the top 50 by the U.S. News and World Report; the Journalism School is consistently a top ranked program by organizations and publications such as the NewsPro-Radio Television Digital News Association, USA Today and College Magazine and the Energy Star CHP Award from the Environmental Protection Agency for significant pollution reduction and energy efficiency.

The University of Missouri is a Division I member of the NCAA and joined the Southeastern Conference in 2012. Since making the switch, the athletic department budget has grown to more than $90 million. The Tigers compete in 18 sports and have achieved notable success in everything from gymnastics and wrestling to football and basketball.

Bill Heffernan, 80, and his daughter Lisa Heffernan Weil in the wheat field on their family farm off Route J in western Boone County. The farm is the site of Lexington, the first permanent European settlement in Boone County, and the “Model Farm” chosen in 1872 as the premier farm in the state. [PHOTOS BY DON SHRUBSHELL/TRIBUNE]

REMEMBERING OUR ROOTS

Family seeks to preserve site where Boone County was born

BY RUDI KELLER | Columbia Daily Tribune

“T he history of Boone County, not unlike the history of the largest empires on the globe, may be said to be funnel-shaped. Starting from a single point of time (1815) and from a single locality (Thrall's Prairie), its contour diverges and widens as the years roll on …”

William F. Switzler, History of Boone County, 1882.

On the morning her parents were scheduled to close the deal on a 500-acre farm in western Boone County, Lisa Heffernan Weil called her father, Bill Heffernan, with an urgent message.

“I called Dad that morning and said, ‘You’ve got to buy this place. It is amazing. You can’t believe the history here,’ ” she recalled.

It was, she had found, the place of the first permanent settlement by Europeans of what would become Boone County. And to add to the provenance of the property, it also won the title “Premium Farm of the State,” or “Model Farm” in an 1872 competition sponsored by the State Board of Agriculture.

Weil was a sophomore history student at Washington University and interning at the Missouri Historical Society. Both her father and mother, Judy Heffernan, were rural sociologists at the University of Missouri and Bill Heffernan farmed as a sideline.

They chose the land along Route J because soil maps showed it was among the best in the region, wind-blown loess carried by updrafts from the Missouri River bottoms. That fertility was noticed by early settlers, who thought it was like the land they left in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky.

Timothy Flint, who traveled through the region

This collection of square nails was found during a 2005 excavation of Lexington, the first permanent European settlement in Boone County, which is now a part of the Heffernan farm off Route J north of Highway 40.

from 1816 to 1826, wrote that he witnessed as many as 100 people per day passing through St. Charles on their way west. He noted wagons laden with household goods, large numbers of slaves, livestock and everyone walking alongside.

“From some cause, it happens that in the western and southern states, a tract of country gets a name, as being more desirable than any other …,” he wrote.

A granite marker on Route J about three miles north of Highway 40 marks where Boonslick Road crossed Thrall’s Prairie, site of Lexington, the first settlement in what became Boone County in 1820.

“During the first, second, and third years of my residence here, the whole current of immigration set towards this country, Boon's Lick, so called, from Boon's having discovered and worked the salines in that tract. Boon's Lick was the common centre of hopes, and the common point of union for the people. Ask one of them whither he was moving, and the answer was, ‘To Boon's Lick, to be sure.’ ”

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