I was vaguely surfing around Wikipedia yesterday, as I do, and discovered something rather stunning: that north Missouri is home to one of the holiest places in the religion of the Latter-day Saints.
I am aware that Missouri plays a part in the history of the Latter-day Saints in the U.S. A fairly bloody part, if I’m not mistaken, and I’m not if Wikipedia is any indication. There was an Extermination Order signed by the then-governor and a Mormon War that took place in this state. I was told once that it was still legal to kill Mormons in Missouri until at least the second half of the twentieth century (1976, actually).
Adam-ondi-Ahman is the name of a valley created by a bend in the Grand River, north of Highway 36, near Gallatin, Missouri, and this is, according to the Latter-day Saints, a holy place. It is the site where Adam and Eve were sent after being cast out from the Garden of Eden, and will be the meeting place for holy men in the Latter-day Saints faith before the Second Coming of Christ.
Thirty-five miles south of this valley is the now-deserted town of Far West, Missouri, which was a large settlement of Mormons before they were driven out of Missouri, to Nauvoo, Illinois.
Both sites are now owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is apparently an intent to build a temple on the Adam-ondi-Ahman site, though it is currently undeveloped farmland, and they were working on plans to make Far West into a tourist attraction of sorts, but it looks like that plan failed as the tourists were not flocking to the area quite as much as they’d hoped.
Still, I am utterly stunned that I never knew this before. I went to high school not far from there, and the area is pretty much devoid of touristy attractions with the possible exception of the birthplace of General John J. Pershing. My sister has devoted a large amount of time to memorizing all the useless facts associated with General Pershing simply because she lived in his home county, but a religion has named one of its holiest places less than an hour from our doorstep, and I’ve never heard boo about it.
The name Adam-ondi-Ahman is supposedly derived from Adamic language, which is thought to be the Divine Language used by God to communication with Adam and Eve. I have no problem admitting my ignorance of religion in general, but it never occurred to me, ever, that there were people out there who argued about the actual verbal language spoken by God. It just never occurred to me. But there are, of course. Always.
Anyway, here ends another What Abbie Learned Lately from Wikipedia lesson.
I guess we could have gone there instead of missing the Ozarks.