Flat Branch Park
Fourth and Cherry
Site of the original homesteads in Columbia, the Flat Branch area was settled by residents of Smithton--located just a few blocks away on the corner of Garth and Broadway--who had grown weary of hauling water from the Flat Branch up a steep hill to their homes. The town of Columbia was platted around the 1820 cabin of Thomas Duly, located in the present day southeast corner of Fifth and Broadway. By 1822, the village consisted of fifteen to twenty log structures huddled together in a clearing beside the Flat Branch surrounded by dense wilderness. The area soon became a business center for the small village. In the early 1820's, Charles Hardin built the first brick home and a tannery in the area. A free African American, John Batiste Lange Sr., operated a butcher shop on Market Square from 1851 to 1869.
Later, with the arrival of the rail, this area became a transportation center as well. The KATY Railroad built a spur into Columbia named the Missouri-Kansas-Texas line, or MKT. When the railroad began abandoning lesser used tracks, Columbia took advantage of the burgeoning rails-to-trails program and set aside this land as a hiking and biking trail. Once a key railroad spur to a growing community, the MKT is now the most popular spur on the KATY Trail.
Hetzler Brothers Packing Company
708 E. Broadway
This building stands as one of Columbia's few surviving industrial buildings of its era. J.P. and W.J. Hetzler began a meat packing business here in 1898. Their two-story plant was built of cement blocks manufactured on site. The building itself included cold storage rooms and a cellar for curing meats. To ensure freshness during the humid Missouri summers, a 60-ton ice machine was installed--after an amazing rail journey that required five freight cars to transport the load. Four ice wagons were used for ice deliveries throughout Columbia. By 1915, their success was such that they were able to open their own store, Old Boone County Farm Sausage.
The Hetzler Brothers were well-known Columbian businessmen and W.J. Hetzler served as mayor for four years. His annual salary was $500 a year and he regularly donated the entire sum to the Boy Scouts. Although many of the original outbuildings on the corner of Fourth and Broadway have been removed, present day Columbians still refer to it as the "old ice house."
MKT Railroad Station
402 E. Broadway
The original depot built on this site in 1901 was a simple frame structure. As the new brick building was constructed the original one was relegated to a freight depot and eventually demolished in 1955. The current brick depot, built in 1909, was a testament to the city Columbia would eventually become. Seven tracks once ran through this rail yard and this depot was the only one of its kind ever built by the MKT. It served both college students and townspeople until 1958. Today, it is a wonderfully restored restaurant and the terminus for the MKT Trail. National Register
Second Baptist Church
407 E. Broadway
In 1866 the Rev. William F. Brooks, a missionary, organized the first African American Baptist church in Columbia at the home of John Lange, Sr. They soon relocated to the Cummings Academy, a local school for the black community. In 1873 a church was erected at Fifth and Cherry but the expanding congregation soon required more room. With the aid of several other churches and a loan from local ragtime composer Blind Boone, this 1894 Romanesque-style church was built on its current location of Fourth and Broadway. The church once had golden oak pews, sold to an antiques dealer in 1978 and replaced with colonial-type seating. The decorative art glass windows, still intact, were installed in 1894 for well over $1000, a steep price at the time.
J.W. "Blind" Boone Home
10 N. Fourth Street
Born of a slave woman in a Union Army camp, Boone was an example of the strides made by the first post-Civil War generation of African Americans. Although a sickness in his youth robbed him of his eyes, he retained an amazing ear for music and could easily replicate a song after hearing it just once. When he was not touring, Boone filled the ten-room house with music. His composition "Strains of Flat Branch" pays special tribute to his neighborhood.
The house itself was built by John Lang, Jr. for his sister Eugenia and her musician husband in 1889. Although Lange was primarily known for road-building, he also applied his considerable talents to house construction. Beginning in the 1930's, the house was the home of the Stuart Parker Memorial Funeral Home and the Warren Funeral Chapel, the only African-American owned business to survive the urban renewal land clearance projects of the late 1950's and early 1960's. Boone's home is currently undergoing rehabilitation and will open as a museum dedicated to Boone and that most American of musical genres, ragtime. National Register
From here, double back to Broadway.
McKinney Building
411 E. Broadway
Built originally in 1917, this store in the only remaining example in Columbia of the once common cast-iron store front. At the bottom of the original columns, one can still see the stamp from the manufacturer, Christopher and Co., St. Louis. The building originally featured a store on the main floor and apartments upstairs. The current owner continues this tradition by living over his business. Local lore has it that traveling minstrels and performers regularly bunked down in the second story apartments.
Next stop: Government District
