Between Philipsburg and Marshfield, Route 66 escapes the presence of the Interstate, and travels through some beautiful rural scenes via County Route CC. I briefly detoured off the route to check out the town of Niangua, thinking that any town with a name that difficult to pronounce must be home to something interesting–but I didn’t find anything.
I imagine very few towns have a scale-model of a satellite sitting in front of their courthouse, but Marshfield, Missouri does, and with good reason. Marshfield is home to Dr. Edwin Hubble, the astronomer whose name became a household word, when it was given to the Hubble telescope.
The Hubble Telescope replica is 1/4 the size of the real thing.
After you’ve walked around the courthouse, you can take a moment to explore Marshfield’s sleepy main street. There are a few businesses in operation, but I didn’t find much to draw me inside. A giant grain elevator looms over the town, but I couldn’t find a good place to take a clean picture of it.
Note: This trip was first published in 2008.
Still have the Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival every year. 🙂 The original email was sent back in 2008, and we have had the event annually. 2019 Festival is coming up! We will be updating the website soon for the upcoming festival.
From: Karen Gore, Oct 2008
Email: klgore63@cherryblossomfest.com
Location: Marshfield, MO
Message: Marshfield is also home to an annual Cherry Blossom Festival in the
spring. Every year famous Missourians are honored with a star on our Walk of
Fame. One of the previous honorees was Mickey Carroll from Wizard of Oz. A 2009
recipient that has already been named is Bob Barker.
We also invite family members and descendants of U.S. Presidents.
It makes for a fascinating, educational, and fun event.
To find out when the festival will be next year, check it out at http://www.cherryblossomfest.com.