The historic town of St. Charles, Mo., with its bustling main street, is a great place to visit to find farm heritage as well as learn a history lesson or two.

Chasing collectible history can be a travel event, and in St. Charles collectors may enjoy some living history artifacts along with good food and charming shops.

Before this was a U.S. territory, it was settled in 1769 by the  French Canadian fur trader Louis Blanchette, who  built a cabin on the Missouri River in what is today St. Charles. He called the settlement Les Petites Cotes, or “the little hills.”

The District of St. Charles was established on Oct. 1, 1812, by Gov. William Clark. (If that name sounds familiar, well … he put “Clark” in the Lewis and Clark expedition.) Back then it was a huge parcel of land; it extended from the Missouri River on the south to the Canadian border on the north, and from the Mississippi River on the east to the Pacific Ocean.

The History of St. Charles County, Missouri (1765-1885) states the area comprised all of what is now Minnesota and Iowa and major portions of Idaho, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, and Oregon. The area has seen many famous pioneers over the years, including Daniel Boone, who migrated from Kentucky in 1795 and settled in the county until his death in September 1820.

There is a huge bronze statue in Frontier Park that marks the spot where on May 20, 1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition departed from St. Charles on their historic overland journey to the Pacific.

One of the museums on Main Street is the First Missouri State Capitol Historic Site, which includes buildings and grounds of the original capital after it joined the Union in August 1821. The state’s initial legislators met in St. Charles for the first time on June 4, 1821. Heated debates over states’ rights and slavery filled the rooms of the new temporary Capitol.

The meeting place provided by the citizens of St. Charles was on the second floor of two newly constructed adjoining Federal-style brick buildings. The Peck brothers, Charles and Ruluff, owned one of the buildings and operated a general store on the first floor. Chauncy Shepard owned the adjoining building, with a carpenter shop on the first floor.

The second floor of the building was divided and used as Senate and House chambers, an office for the governor and a small committee room. Four governors ran the state’s affairs from the Capitol in St. Charles until the new Capitol in Jefferson City opened in 1826.

These grounds are one of the obvious places that those seeking some farm heritage will enjoy.

Out in back of the building is a garden with an old kettle, a French-style building and a place where the city still offers hands-on activities such as butter churning, candle dipping and viewing of young farm animals.

Farm endeavors were also taking place all along Main Street at the time. One building on North Main that is now a shop was once Ringe-Barklage & Co. Farm Machinery. Wheat was big in the area, and the Preservation Journal for St. Charles cited that St. Charles County produced more than 1 million bushels in 1879.

Farmers took their wheat to one of the three flouring mills that operated on Main Street near the elevators. Grain transporters also used a ferry and railroad tracks during the second half of the 19th century.

St. Charles City Mill, founded by Adam Klinger in 1851, operated here until about 1890. Theodore Klinger constructed this newer building in 1896, selling it 10 years later to Louis Ringe Jr. and George Barklage for their wholesale and retail farm machinery business.

Ringe-Barklage & Co. also sold surreys – automobiles with a “straight bottom and overhead canopy” like their horse-drawn predecessors. Louis Ringe Sr. was a gunsmith who emigrated from Hanover, Germany, and served five terms as mayor in St. Charles. These are just a few of the stops that make St. Charles a great collectors’ getaway!

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.