MISSOURI

Since 1998, the decommissioned battleship USS Missouri, also known as the "Mighty Mo", has been permanently moored close to the USS Arizona Memorial. The last battleship to be constructed by the United States, she was christened in January 1944. After service in the Pacific and Korean wars, she was decommissioned in 1955 and remained mothballed until being refitted in 1986. Operation Desert Storm saw the Missouri firing Tomahawk missiles against Iraq, but she was finally retired once more in 1992, as the last operational battleship in the world.

Should the need arise, she's still capable of being recommissioned in 45–90 days. Several different US locations competed for the honor of providing a final berth for the Missouri. Pearl Harbor won, on the basis that the place where World War II began for the United States should also hold the spot where it ended; the Japanese surrender of September 2, 1945, was signed on the deck of the Missouri, then moored in Tokyo Bay. In addition to being a monument in her own right, part of the battleship's new role is as a recruiting tool for the US Navy; it's even possible to arrange kids' sleepover parties on board.

Since the battleship is located alongside Ford Island, which is officially part of the naval base, visitors can only reach it by shuttle bus. These depart from the USS Bowfin visitor center, which is also where you purchase tickets (daily 9am–5pm; adults $14, ages 4–12 $7; guided tours $6 extra per person; tel 973-2494, www.ussmissouri.com). Having crossed the harbor via one of only six retracting bridges in the world, you're deposited at the entrance gate. Depending on whether you've paid extra to join one of the regular hour-long guided tours – which you might as well, given that you're interested enough to have made it this far – you're then shepherded either towards your personal guide or simply left to climb up to the deck.

The overwhelming first impression for all visitors is the Missouri's sheer size; at 887 feet long, she's the length of three football fields. Next you're likely to focus on her colossal twin gun turrets, each of which is equipped with three guns. By contrast, once you go below decks, the crew's quarters are cramped in the extreme, bringing home the full claustrophobic reality of her long and dangerous missions. The principal highlights are the dimly lit Combat Engagement Center, set up as it was during the Gulf War but now looking very antiquated; the surrender site, on the deck nearby; and the spot where a kamikaze fighter careered into the side of the ship, as captured in a dramatic photo. Thus far, however, the Missouri's four engine rooms are not open to the public.

Missouri Headwaters State Park
Officially, the Missouri River begins its circuitous journey to the Mississippi, and eventually the Gulf of Mexico, at the confluence of the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers. Three miles north of I-90, halfway between Bozeman and Butte, and maintained as the Missouri Headwaters State Park ($3 per vehicle; camping $5), these marshy grasslands beneath a shallow bluff were identified by Lewis and Clark in July 1805. Three years later, John Colter, a veteran of that expedition who was the first to describe Yellowstone, was captured here by a party of Blackfoot, who, after killing his companion, stripped him and made him run for his life. Colter killed the one pursuer who kept up with him, hid under a snag on the river, and reached safety on the Bighorn River eleven days later. Fur trappers who followed in the wake of Lewis and Clark included Kit Carson; traces remain of the nineteenth-century town they created.

The state of MISSOURI
Where the forest meets the prairie and the Mississippi River meets the Missouri River, has just two significant cities. Dominant St Louis sits midway down its eastern fringe; Kansas City is almost directly across on the western border. The pair are linked by I-70, but there's not much in between to warrant stopping off. In contrast, the south features the beautiful hillsides, streams and ragged lakes of the Ozark Mountains, as well as the booming country-and-western town of Branson; while in the east, small river towns such as Hannibal and serene Ste Genevieve brighten the course of the Mississippi. The northwest, home of the Pony Express and outlaw Jesse James, still strikes up images of frontier times. Although the first French colonists honored the claims of local Native Americans, such as the original Missouri, when the area was sold to the US in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase, the Indians were driven west by a great rush of settlers. In the 1840s and 1850s immigrants from Germany and Ireland flooded into eastern Missouri. Outnumbering their pro-slavery predecessors, they swung the balance in favor of staying in the Union during the Civil War. However, Confederate guerrilla forces attracted considerable support among slave-owners in the west of the state. Meanwhile Missouri, and St Louis in particular, was establishing itself as an important gateway to the West. Today, the "Show Me State" (so called because of the supposed skepticism of the typical Missourian) retains a conservative air, particularly in the rural areas.

To view Vacation Rental Homes in MISSOURI click here.

Return to Vacation Guides