Last week Don and I visited the August A. Busch Conservation Memorial Park. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of the last of autumn's colors. We did see some earthy colors like ochre-yellow and sturdy green trees, but what I found so beautiful was the nearly 7000 acres of land itself. The land was once owned by farmers and individual private property owners until it was sold by Missouri to Mr. August Busch in 1947. Mr. Busch's wife Alice contributed $70,000 to the Missouri Department of Conservation to preserve the area for public use.
We traveled the narrow but well marked roads around the park. We saw signs of the crop land that may have been in existence at the time the State of Missouri took over and created the nature reserve. We saw some of the 550 acres of lakes and ponds and the remains of farming fields. Once in a while Don spotted a bunker or two used by the United States Army to store TNT and other toxic chemicals years ago. As a result, the area became a part of the Federal Superfund Environmental Program.
Of particular interest to me was the boardwalk over the wetlands. It was not very large, but large enough to provide a small shack through which we observed ducks. Some of the geese flying overhead "honked" loudly as if we had disturbed their area. We searched without success to find frogs or even some small minnows in the weeds. There was a small slick in the weeds which I wondered, could it have been toxic causing the absence of amphibians.
As I left the duck blind which faces East toward the Mississippi River, I thought of the people we had seen fishing and hunting and biking along the way. I wondered too what reaction there may have been by Native Americans who may have spotted strangers about to inhabit their land. Did people object to the Federal Government's takeover of their property because of a "strange law" known as Eminent Domain?
When we left we were refreshed and inspired. The Memorial, through the efforts of Alice Busch to keep alive and preserve this part of Missouri's history, benefits all of us. Being there was a reminder of the power of land and water and of how both can be enhanced or destroyed by humans and nature.
