Southern District Commissioner Karen Miller received a request to close the road a few months ago. The Cedar Creek bridge, reportedly constructed in 1892, still spans the creek from Boone to Callaway county, but the bridge decking and most of the iron supports are missing. The creek winds in an oxbow around the southern portion of the area.
“It’s a heckuva drop,” Sapp said, noting that the area also had a rich history and was once the site of Duley’s Mill on Cedar Creek and a 19th-century engineering marvel: a tunnel drilled through the limestone bluff at the base of the Backbone to provide stronger water flow for the mill. He said the Pinnacles area north of Columbia is the only place with similar geography in Boone County.īut the road along the panoramic Backbone, referred to as “Boone County’s Grand Canyon” in some historical accounts, has nearly vertical drops of 150 to 200 feet along its west side. “So few people know about it,” said David Sapp, Boone County historian and longtime member and officer of the Boone County Historical Society. Commissioners will vote on whether to close the stretch of road at a regular meeting Thursday or Tuesday. The county has not maintained the steep, rocky, section of Backbone Road for several years.
The Boone County Commission has received a request from property owner Eugene Windmiller to close the southernmost roughly 800-foot portion of Backbone Road, about 1½ miles south of Englewood Road and 4 miles southeast of Columbia Regional Airport. One of Boone County’s most scenic areas, a popular party spot at the end of an increasingly treacherous road along the aptly named Devil’s Backbone, will soon be off-limits to the public.
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