Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Arrow Rock, MO

Arrow Rock is a village in Saline County, Missouri, set on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River, and the entire village is a National Historic Landmark district, designated in 1963 for its role in Westward Expansion and the Santa Fe Trail.

The town takes its name from the flint-bearing limestone bluff where Native Americans quarried flint for arrowheads for thousands of years; the landmark appeared on a 1732 French map as 'pierre a fleche,' meaning 'rock of arrows.'

Arrow Rock was founded in 1829 under the name Philadelphia, and the name was changed to Arrow Rock in 1833 to match the famous river landmark.

A ferry at Arrow Rock began carrying westbound settlers across the Missouri River by 1815, and Santa Fe trading caravans started crossing there in 1821, making the town a gateway of the Santa Fe Trail.

By 1860 Arrow Rock was the most important river port in Saline County with nearly 1,000 residents, but the railroads bypassed it after the Civil War and fires gutted its business district, shrinking the town.

The 2020 census counted just 60 residents in Arrow Rock, down from 56 people in 36 households in 2010 — a tiny population for a town that draws well over 100,000 visitors a year.

The restoration of Arrow Rock's Huston Tavern in 1923 is considered the beginning of historic preservation in Missouri, and Arrow Rock State Historic Site was the first state-designated historic site in Missouri.

The Arrow Rock Lyceum Theatre, a professional summer theatre in the tiny village, hosts more than 33,000 patrons every year.

The home of 19th-century artist George Caleb Bingham in Arrow Rock was separately designated a National Historic Landmark in 1968.

Three Missouri governors came from Arrow Rock in the 19th century, including Meredith Miles Marmaduke, who platted the town in 1829, and Claiborne Fox Jackson, who became the town's first postmaster in 1832.