Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

This is the site and part of the famous Eckert's Tavern, well known between the years 1818 and 1846 with the migration of various expeditions to the west. The Western House was the starting site for the rougher crowd, Eckert's Tavern was the starting site for the middle class, farmers, and the more gentile. The tavern proper was a large building and stood facing Main St. The second story was destroyed in the tornado of Feb. 26, 1876. The livery stable, known as Anderson's, together with wagon yard and blacksmith shop where wagons were traded and repaired and horses shoed, etc. was in use by the patrons of the tavern.

Saint Charles, Eckert's Tavern, was also the starting point for the expedition of General Zebulon M. Pike in 1806. He had been instructed to explore the western and southwestern parts of the Louisiana Purchase Territory. He left St. Charles and went up the Missouri and Osage Rivers, then traveled overland westward to the Rocky Mountains. In what is now Colorado, Pike discovered the famous mountain peak that still bears his name, Pike's Peak.

The Boone's Lick Road established as a stagecoach worthy road to Franklin, Missouri by May 1820. In 1825 President John Quincy Adams appointed Benjamin Reeves, George Sibley and Thomas Mathers as commissioners to carry out the route to Santa Fe. Using the Boone's Lick Road as the main highway from which the Santa Fe Trail, and later the Salt Lick Trail and even the Oregon Trail grew. These men assembled at Eckert's Tavern to write their reports concerning the survey and marking of the road from St. Charles to New Mexico.

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