"Prairie Park"

"Prairie Park" was built between 1845 and 1849 by William Breathitt Sappington and his wife Mary Mildred Breathitt Sappington. It is one of the finest surviving examples of nineteenth century Greek Revival architecture in rural Missouri and was a center of early social and political life in the Boonslick area. Originally the centerpiece of a 600 acre plantation, it was home to the Sappingtons and their descendants until 1918. , William B. Sappington's father, Dr. John B. Sappington (1776-1856) is recognized by historians as the most successful manufacturer of patent medicine to combat malaria in antebellum America. By the 1840's, his quinine-based anti-fever pills had become a standard drug for the treatment of malaria throughout the developing West. Dr. Sappington's trading empire produced a fortune, one that he shared with his children. , William B. Sappington (1811-1888) was a highly respected businessman, farmer, banker and community leader in Saline County. A Confederate sympathizer, Sappington was the brother-in-law of Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, who tried to lead Missouri out of the Union in 1861, and the Uncle of Confederate General John Sappington Marmaduke, whose election as Governor in 1885 signaled that hatreds created by the war were at an end.