Stretching for 30 miles the Little Dixie Highway of the Great River Road travels atop limestone bluffs and offers stunning views of the mighty Mississippi River, 19th century Southern-style architecture, quaint river town ambiance, and prime bird and eagle watching opportunities.
The region gets its name from the settlers who moved into Missouri from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia following the Louisiana Purchase. By the time Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state in 1821, these settlers’ southern culture already dominated the region. In fact they referred their homesteads not as farms but as plantations. Although now generally considered part of the midwest, Missouri was once thought of itself as Southern. Raising southern crops such as corn, cotton, tobacco, and hemp, the landowners relied so heavily on slave labor to work their farms that by 1860 almost one person out of four was an African-American slave. The plantation homes and southern-style architecture that can be found along the byway are a reminder of these times.
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