![]() I started blogging a year ago (October 2018) and that (as well as the 52-hike challenge) inspired me to start keeping track of my hikes. My definition of “hike” has changed a lot this year. Forest Service, which is the only other property owner along Backbone Road, apparently is interested in purchasing much of the property.Ĭounty officials said the best chance for the public to have access to the property again would be for the Forest Service to make that purchase and possibly maintain and improve the crumbling road.Keyhole & Wild Loop | Devil’s Backbone Open Space The Windmiller family owns some 600 acres in the Backbone area. “No telling what they’re doing down there,” he said. Herron said some individuals and parties had trespassed on the 67-acre Windmiller property at the bottom of the road. “You’ve got high school kids going down there to party, which I’d like to stop,” Herron told commissioners Monday. Neighboring property owner Bill Herron, whose farm is located on the east and west sides of Backbone Road at Englewood Road, said he had no objection to closing the road south of his property. The bridge is less than a quarter-mile from where a 53-year-old Columbia man, Randal Fennewald, died from a fall in October 2014 on the Callaway County side of the creek. Shawver and Miller both said the road closure would help minimize the county’s liability in the event someone was injured at the old bridge or along the road. Resource Management Director Stan Shawver said closing the road and allowing the Windmillers to put up a gate at the spot where the county road maintenance ends would “keep out folks who don’t need to be there.” The Windmillers own the only home on the southernmost stretch of the road. Southern District Commissioner Karen Miller received a request to close the road a few months ago. The Cedar Creek bridge, reportedly constructed in 1892, still spans the creek from Boone to Callaway county, but the bridge decking and most of the iron supports are missing. The creek winds in an oxbow around the southern portion of the area. “It’s a heckuva drop,” Sapp said, noting that the area also had a rich history and was once the site of Duley’s Mill on Cedar Creek and a 19th-century engineering marvel: a tunnel drilled through the limestone bluff at the base of the Backbone to provide stronger water flow for the mill. He said the Pinnacles area north of Columbia is the only place with similar geography in Boone County.īut the road along the panoramic Backbone, referred to as “Boone County’s Grand Canyon” in some historical accounts, has nearly vertical drops of 150 to 200 feet along its west side. “So few people know about it,” said David Sapp, Boone County historian and longtime member and officer of the Boone County Historical Society. Commissioners will vote on whether to close the stretch of road at a regular meeting Thursday or Tuesday. The county has not maintained the steep, rocky, section of Backbone Road for several years. The Boone County Commission has received a request from property owner Eugene Windmiller to close the southernmost roughly 800-foot portion of Backbone Road, about 1½ miles south of Englewood Road and 4 miles southeast of Columbia Regional Airport. One of Boone County’s most scenic areas, a popular party spot at the end of an increasingly treacherous road along the aptly named Devil’s Backbone, will soon be off-limits to the public. ![]()
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