Everything OddWay knows about. Narrow it down by what you're after, or where you're going.
Real events too strange to have made the textbook.
Jefferson City, MO
Opened in 1836 and closed in 2004, the Missouri State Penitentiary preserves cell blocks, yards and the former gas chamber from one of the country's oldest major prisons west of the Mississippi. Scheduled history tours and paranormal investigations make the enormous complex a particularly strong OddWay stop.
Kirksville, MO
Located at A.T. Still University, this museum documents the origins of osteopathic medicine in Kirksville through instruments, papers and unusual anatomical and medical displays. The collection also preserves buildings and artifacts associated with founder Andrew Taylor Still.
Marshall, MO
This museum at the Marshall airport documents the locally based Nicholas-Beazley Airplane Company and its surprisingly ambitious early aircraft designs. Original aircraft, engines and cockpit displays make it a focused aviation-history stop with a strong Missouri connection.
Florissant, MO
This historic Catholic complex preserves an 1819 convent, 1821 church and other early buildings connected with St. Rose Philippine Duchesne. Religious artifacts, frontier history and the unusually old surviving structures make it a distinctive stop in suburban St. Louis.
Harwood, MO
The site preserves archaeological remains of a major Osage village occupied in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A public trail and interpretive signs provide access while the village remains themselves stay protected beneath the ground.
Charleston, MO
A striking grave marker in the Charleston area depicts a crowned woman and has generated local curiosity far beyond an ordinary headstone. The stop is valuable as cemetery folk art, but visitors should stay on established paths and treat the burial ground respectfully.
Chillicothe, MO
The restored former Chillicothe Baking Company building celebrates the town where commercially machine-sliced bread was first sold in 1928. Exhibits turn an everyday supermarket item into a surprisingly specific piece of technological and advertising history.
Columbia, MO
Thomas Jefferson's original gravestone was given to the University of Missouri by his descendants in the nineteenth century and now stands on Francis Quadrangle. The odd relocation puts a major presidential funerary artifact hundreds of miles from Jefferson's actual grave at Monticello.
Kirksville, MO
A protected shelter displays Native American petroglyphs carved into exposed rock as many as roughly 1,500 years ago. The site is open for self-guided viewing during park hours, and visitors must remain on the observation walkway.
East Prairie, MO
Towosahgy preserves the earthworks and village area of a Mississippian mound-building community in Missouri's Bootheel. The surviving mounds and plaza can be viewed from the public historic-site grounds without disturbing archaeological deposits.
Independence, MO
Built in 1881, the ornate Second Empire mansion contains elaborate interiors, unusual architectural details and stories surrounding the Vaile family. Seasonal tours make it a strong combination of Gilded Age excess, local tragedy and Victorian atmosphere.
Jefferson City, MO
The Missouri Veterinary Medical Foundation preserves thousands of veterinary artifacts, including historic surgical tools, animal dentistry equipment, medicines and unusual specimens. It is the first U.S. museum dedicated solely to veterinary medicine and currently operates by posted weekday hours with appointments recommended.
De Soto, MO
Washington State Park preserves the largest known concentration of petroglyphs in Missouri, associated with Mississippian-era ceremonial activity. Two protected viewing areas near the north entrance allow public access without walking on or touching the carvings.
Akers, MO
Ruins of a stone hospital stand beside Welch Spring, where an early twentieth-century doctor promoted cave air as a treatment for respiratory illness. The failed medical venture left an unusually photogenic wall directly beside a major Ozark spring.
