674. Cassville, Barry County (MO021)

Have I seen something that’s straight up cut out of stone out here in a while?  Are there even quarries around here?  I mean, this does look lovely but a lot of the brick here has been red if I remember correctly, except for Springfield and that’s big enough of a place to have cut stone shipped from somewhere else.  Now that I think about it, a couple of the palatial courthouses in the middle of nowhere were cut and a bit roughhewn so I guess there’s got to be something there.  Either way, that’s a digression.  My point here (and I do have one) is that this is a great courthouse.  I noticed there is a semi-circular apse type feature in the back.  I saw something similar in Galena.  I wonder if that’s just an artifact of a particular architect or if it’s part of a style that I’m not hip to? 

The cache was a Lock-n-Lock behind the air conditioning unit of a chiropractic office.  I snagged a couple of trackables for transport south, but with that I was officially done with all but the final stage of the trip: the drive back home.  I, of course, stopped for some caches along the way.

Passing through Fort Smith, I grabbed a Virtual with a strange story behind it.  It was long believed that the relevant tombstone was the murdered mistress of a long-time former mayor.  It turned out it wasn’t her (there was a mistress, though). Thanks to the enigmatic gravestone, the legend was enough to spawn haunted tales.  I stopped at the Virtual at the old fort itself, but it was as involved as a Multi, and after the ignominy of Fort Scott, I let it go.  I picked up some others but little else of note as I continued.  Eventually, I made it home to the comfort of my own bed, and I slept a justly earned rest.

And the next morning, when I awoke, I chose my cache for the day.  I logged The Arkansas County Challenge.

And that is how I finished my fifth state, the Land of Red Dirt and Diamonds.