Heading home to the Show-Me state over the 4th of July holiday gave us time to catch up with friends and family. Being there for 10 days also allowed a little time to do some fun stuff. We loaded up our friend Brandi Hodges and headed up to St. Louis (about 3.5 hours away) for some afternoon fun before taking in a Cardinals game.
There are tons of famous people from Missouri, but most folks may not realize that President Ulysses S. Grant has ties to the Show-Me State. His wife, Julia Dent, was born and raised on a plantation just outside of St. Louis. After the couple married, they received 80 acres of Dent family land as a wedding gift.
The land became known as Grant's Farm....Today, the land sits smack dab in the middle of a metropolitan area! We got to tour the farm on a little tram that drove us across the property. One of the most interesting things we heard on the tour was that the fence surrounding the property was made with recycled riffle barrels!
Grant's Farm became a home for Grant and his wife Julia, and it was no time before Grant went to work building a dream house for his new bride. He probably did it all without asking for her input...because she hated his finished cabin and only lived there briefly before relocating. Luckily, the cabin remains and is actually the only remaining structure hand-built by a U.S. president prior to assuming office.
Way back when in 1907, the home was purchased by August Busch Sr. In the late 1970s, the Anheuser-Busch family restored the cabin and made it part of Grant's Farm.
Today, the farm is open to the public for free tours and is a cute little version of a zoo. I had not been there since I was a kid and it was a lot of fun to see it all again with my "big kids" eyes.
Grant's Farm is also home to the world famous Budweiser Clydesdales. The stables house 25 mares, geldings, stallions and foals. One of the largest groups to own the breed, Anheuser-Busch owns more than 200 Clydesdales nationwide!
Grant's Farm was still as fun as I remember it! Admission is free, so if you're in the St. Louis area, be sure to put it on your list of tourist stops!
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