Mingo National Wildlife Refuge
Wildlife Reserve · Puxico, Missouri
Twenty-one thousand acres of bottomland hardwood swamp in the Missouri Bootheel, in an abandoned channel of the Mississippi River between two ridges. It is one of the last substantial pieces of the swamp forest that covered this corner of the state before it was drained for farmland in the early twentieth century - a landscape that was almost entirely erased - and the Mingo Wilderness Area within it was designated in 1976. It is a birding and paddling place rather than a scenic one, and it is very quiet.
24279 State Highway 51, Puxico, Missouri, 63960, United States
FREE and open daily from dawn to dusk, year round. The auto tour route and the boardwalk are open in daylight; the visitor centre keeps limited hours and is often weekday-only or volunteer-staffed. PORTIONS CLOSE SEASONALLY as waterfowl sanctuary, and the bottomland floods - roads and trails close after heavy rain without much notice. Check with the refuge before travelling, particularly in late winter and spring.
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