State eyes site for new park

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri officials are working to open a new state park along the Current River in Shannon County, a state agency said Monday.

The Department of Natural Resources said it's working to take over management of land now owned by the Conservation Department. The area holds what used to be called the Alton Club, a corporate retreat for a box company from Illinois. The site is 1.5 miles west of Missouri Highway 19 and 12 miles north of the town of Eminence, according to the National Register of Historic Places site database.

Many details still need to be worked out, and there's no opening scheduled yet.

The Conservation Department acquired the land in the mid-1990s and has used it for teacher training in conservation and other workshops, but it was generally not open to the public.

The club includes dormitories, a large gymnasium, several other structures and opportunities for tennis, skeet shooting and floating on the river.

But the buildings involved need repair, which money conservation officials didn't have, and some recently were placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

So the land is being turned over to the Department of Natural Resources, which runs Missouri's 83 state parks and historic sites, to create a new public park.

"It's just a beautiful location looking down on the Current River," said Lorna Domke, the Conservation Department's outreach and education division chief. "It's just a marvelous place to experience the river and the Ozark hills."

Natural Resources Department officials need to evaluate the buildings to see what it will cost to make needed repairs and improvements and how they potentially could be used.

Parks spokeswoman Sue Holst said the agency plans to seek grants and private donations to help defray some of the expense. The fund-raising effort also affects the timeline to get the park open, she said.

Missouri last dedicated a new state park in 2005. That was Morris State Park, near Campbell in the state's southeastern corner.

The National Park Service owns and maintains much of the land along the Current River as part of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways park, including the area in the vicinity of the Alton Club site.

Holst described to a Southeast Missourian reporter Monday afternoon where the Alton Club property is located in regards to National Parks Service land in the vicinity.

Southeast Missourian reporter Matt Sanders contributed to this report.