Transportation

Transportation. Flat Branch Park. , During Columbia's formative years, the Flat Branch Creek area served as a crossroads for two important travel routes , the Booneslick Trail and the Providence Plank Road. Beginning in the early 1800s the Booneslick Trail was a passageway for caravans of traders laden with fur from the Rocky Mountains. Other traders later used the route to transport dry goods and notions to Santa Fe. Wagon trains followed, with pioneers heading west to homestead or to seek gold and silver. The Flat Branch in Columbia was an important source of water to these travelers, as they headed west along the route now known as Broadway., The Providence Plank Road was created by Columbia merchants as a link to carry commerce from the Missouri River to Downtown. The road was completed in the spring of 1865 and extended for ten miles, stretching from S. Fifth Street along the present Providence Road, over a specially-built covered bridge across the Hinkson, and through the woods to Providence. Sadly, the planks did not weather well, and the warped structure was dismantled in 1866., Beginning in the early 1890s, Columbia became a vital railroad hub for this region. By September 1899, three trains carried passengers and freight from Columbia to McBaine, operating on a rail line known as the Missouri Midland Branch. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroad (also known as the MKT or KATY) took over the line in 1901 and built a temporary depot. A brick depot was completed in 1909. The new yard featured seven tracks, six owned by the railroad company, and one of the Hetzler Timber Company Passenger cars were taken off the line in 1857, but freight trains operated until 1975.