Muschany Hollow Road Hike

by Bob Brail

One very popular hiking/biking trail in southern St. Charles County is the Lost Valley Trail on Highway 94, whose trailhead is a short distance east from the intersection of Highways DD and 94. Few people who use the trail realize that its first portion more or less follows the path of Muschany Hollow Road, which until 1941 connected the Marthasville Road (Highway 94) with the village of Howell. This hike follows the old road from the current trailhead north to the fenced boundary of the restricted area, the approximate location of the southern edge of the site of Howell. GPS coordinates are given for each stopping point. The property numbers (for example, D240) can be used at thetntstory.blogspot.com to see photos of all of these homes in 1941.The hike is about 2 ½ miles in each direction.

At 1 (694913 4281876) is D-240, an outbuilding foundation on the north of the side trail that crosses the creek. This is the location of a farm owned by Otmer and Verna Oberdick and their two kids.

Return to the main trail. Follow the older trail along the creek; at this point you will depart from the signed trail. This is the path of Muschany Hollow Road. At 2 (695358 4282424) is D-238. There are lots of daffodils in the spring, some metal roofing, the top of a stone well, and the Muschany Cemetery. Here lived farmers Bob and Nettie Muschany with their two sons.

At 3 (695347   4282413) is D-237. This home site is up the hill from the trail to the north. An elderly African American, Louis Scott, lived here. House debris and trash can be seen. Much closer to the trail (695032   4282523) is the location of an African American schoolhouse. The front step is still in place. Nearby (695084   4282560) is location of second home on property. Some foundation remains. Savannah Scott lived here with her two sons.

The newer trail comes back to the creek at 4, the location of D-220 (694529   4282771) where farmer Arthur Bassett lived with his wife Agnes and their daughter. There is a pile of foundation rubble, many yucca plants, and daffodils and iris in the springtime.

At 5 (693822   4282895) the top of well and some foundations can be found. This home, D-224, was occupied by the farming brothers, Louis, Edward, and William, all bachelors.

At 6 is D-227, the Villiers house site (694083  4282946). J. R. Villiers was a an optometrist in St. Louis, where he lived with his wife Alice. This was “weekend home in the country.” optometrist. Some concrete foundations remain. Some landscaping bricks are still in place.

Stay on the trail that follows the creek. Just before 7 (693547  4283952) a ravine heads off the trail to the north. This was where Muschany Hollow Road headed toward Howell. The roadway is fairly easy to find between January and March, and ends up at near 11 (C-158) noted later in this hike. Do not take the newer trail; follow the creek.

At 7 is D-219, the home of William and Grayce Kaut. Kaut was the general manager of the Brown Shoe Company in St. Louis. This was their principal residence, so Kaut commuted to work.  Their home indicated a level of wealth uncommon in the area.  There was even a caretaker's home on the property; Arch and Clara Turpin lived there. The Kauts had their own gas pump with an underground storage tank. In testimony in United States Circuit Court in 1942, William Kaut described this property as follows: "[It was] a park, not a farm.  We worked that [acreage] for seven years to put it in shape.  The residence was a ranch type house of logs, ten rooms, air-conditioned, had three baths, very fine baths; lavatory and toilet off the game room; slab floor all . . . a ten-room house.  Also a barn one hundred feet long and twenty-seven feet wide.  It was all rock.  The water-works there was also a rock building, with built-in laundry and shower, and also an underground room 14 by 16 for storage, with a two thousand gallon oil tank and filling station and water pipe." A stone barbecue/grilling structure is still standing between trail and creekbed. At right of trail, approximately twenty feet up hillside, the top two feet of a rock wall are still visible; this was the wall behind the gas pump.
              

A standing chimney marks the location of D-218, the “weekend getaway” of O. P. and Alice Hampton (693334  4284001). Hampton was the clothing department manager at the Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney Department Store in St. Louis, where the Hamptons lived. This is 8 on the map.

At 9 (693135  4284070) is D-217. This is the location of the Jones weekend home. The spring house once located here is gone but spring is still active. James G. Jones Jr., was an executive in a St. Louis shoe company.  He and his wife lived in Ladue.

Here the trail leaves the creek and and curves to the north, up and alongside a hill. Eventually the Dunlap Cemetery is reached. Nearby is 10, the home of Hodgen Bates (693600  4284466). This site is covered with hundreds of daffodils in March. In his book The Rape of Howell and Hamburg: An American Tragedy, Donald Muschany described Hodgen Bates: "[T]here was one genius I shall never forget, Hodgen Bates.  Bates was a bachelor who built his own log house, dug his own cistern, and, get this, slept in the shell of a grand piano. . . . He played almost flawless chess, and knew just about everything worth knowing about nature.  I spent many a Sunday afternoon talking with Hodgen, sometimes walking through the woods, while he identified this tree or that tree, birds, rocks, and soils. . . . Hodgen truly loved animals and never as much as killed a snake. . . . And he was an artisan and voluminous reader, who remembered what he read. Our Uncle Karl has a fine tapered walnut cane made for his by Hodgen Bates.  It is an exhibit of superb craftsmanship. . . . After thirty-five years, I was privileged to visit the old homesite of Mr. Bates.  Of course, the house and he were long gone, but I felt his presence as I recognized many signs of the past.  Along the hillside the flowering iris, or flags, continued to bloom where this good old man, Hodgen, had planted them."

Shortly after this, to the trail's left, is 11 (693738  4284765). C-188 is the Kessler house site. A concrete cistern can be seen, as well as iris. In The Rape of Hamburg and Howell, Donald Muschany relates the following: "Leonard Kessler, the well driller, . . . was a man of many talents.  He bought a certain piece of property behind Howell on the Hollow Road that had a spring that never went dry; it came out of a small cave on a hillside.  Mr. Kessler built a concrete dam just below the spring and there was always a refreshing drink for a thirsty traveler in a beautiful setting.  The children were David, Corrine, Ruth, and Lillian.  Just about any evening at dusk, you would find Mrs. Kessler and one or two of the girls taking a walk.  Not because they lacked exercise, but because they enjoyed looking at nature."  The spring he describes is still flowing out of the hillside along the road that went to Howell, east of the cemetery. The concrete dam is discernible.

Just to the northeast past the security fence was the location of Howell. Now it is time to return the the parking lot. Other hikes in the Weldon Spring and Busch Conservation Areas can be found at www.thetntstory.blogspot.com.